


Cathedrals of Light, Salt and Snow

by shoulderbone (lavenderforluck)



Series: Pointing at the Moon [1]
Category: SKAM (Norway)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, But also canon divergence, Canon Compliant, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-01
Updated: 2018-03-02
Packaged: 2019-03-25 11:57:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 35,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13833795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lavenderforluck/pseuds/shoulderbone
Summary: What he wants to say, and cannot bring himself to admit: Before you there was no real me. Only a person pretending to be. Or, alternatively: Isak comes back to face death, and in the meantime, finds rebirth.





	1. Part I

**Author's Note:**

> I basically don't know what happened to me, but I watched Skam and felt, for the first time in a long time, some inspiration. Now that my master's thesis is complete, and I've been off writing my own stuff, this was a welcomed reprieve. So Hi.
> 
> Most of this follows canon, I believe, except for a few key scenes towards the end of Season 4. I'm also not sure how true to character I was, but this is fanfic, so...womp womp.
> 
> I edited this myself, and while I did try very hard, there are bound to be mistakes. If they're truly horrible please alert me, I will appreciate your feedback. The same goes for if I've missed a really crucial tag. 
> 
> First a note or two: I live in London (and now, some times, Berlin) so some of my spelling or word choice may reflect that. I was unsure how to deal with this, because they're obviously Norwegian and aren't speaking English in the first place, so I felt that it wouldn't matter necessary given that a translation would also not be a true reflection of *exactly* what they may be saying, and I am not going to write it in Norwegian. I digress. 
> 
> Second note: I tried to stay true to Oslo, but I may have taken liberties since it has been a few years since I've been there. If there is a glaring issue or total cultural flop, I am forever in debt for a correction or two. *I want to say thank you to @imminentinertia for the Oslo-picks!!
> 
> There will be interactive links to the music and art references, mostly because I like the way SKAM interacted with its fans on various platforms - while this story lacks social media (lol sorry I'm a terrible Millennial) it does utilise a lot of music/art/other references in lieu of that. The music links should be understood as music that is in the background - like a soundtrack, but some of the music is intended to be within the scene (so like, a bar they go to may have music playing in the background. And the link is a suggestion of what I imagine it to be). Also, can we pretend it gets much lighter in Norway than it does in January? Sorry, creative license there. 
> 
> One more crucial note: There are two major Easter eggs I've put in there, because I can't help myself. The first is by Kurt Vonnegut, the second by Richard Siken. See if you spot them - they're abstractions of those works intentionally. For what it is worth, the haiku which shares the namesake of this fic is written by me.

 

 

 

> And the night smells like snow.
> 
> Walking home for a moment
> 
> you almost believe you could start again.
> 
> And an intense love rushes to your heart,
> 
> and hope. It’s unendurable, unendurable.
> 
> **Franz Wright,** closing lines to **[“Night Walk”](http://poemsandtheirmusic.blogspot.com/2010/01/night-walk-by-franz-wright.html) ** from **_God’s Silence_**
> 
>  

-

 

TORSDAG 08:58

In the end, when the hospital had called, he does not flinch. His mother, they explained, had been in declining health for a while. He knew this. His mother, they explained, went peacefully. Isak wants to laugh in their faces, had it not been inappropriate - and devastating; Isak’s mother had never known peace.

He let out a breath he did not know he was holding; and then, like a flinch he remembered so well, his shoulders concave first, and then his chest broke, his body curling  inward into himself. Still, he holds the receiver tightly, his neck and head unmoving, as if this may rely some type of distress caused over the phone to the nurses on the other line. Isak has always had a habit of moving like people were watching, even when he was alone.

He looks around his room in Berlin, unsure, unable to move unless it was to crouch lower, until he was sinking on the ground, and it was not until he hung up, did he let himself breathe again. It sounds like shuddering.

 

-

 

FREDAG 12:45

Oslo has a familiar smell to Isak - an air so clean and bitter it burns through his nose: briny water, decaying leaves. The streets running up through Fagerborg look only slightly altered than what he remembered, as he pass through. The hospital is tucked between several typical Norwegian houses; tall, impassive, beautiful. Silent. He’s nearly adjacent to  Stensparken, overlooking parts of the west end, and he remembers sitting up there when he was fourteen, in the early phase of his sneaking out and drinking career. The neighbourhoods all around him, whichever way they went, were sitting in stillness that he does not recall so clearly. Perhaps he took it - like many things in his youth - for granted.

He could… should have rung Jonas, or Magnus or perhaps even try for Eskild or Eva, and they would have taken him into their lives without a further moment of consideration given his situation. But he does not do that. He still speaks to Jonas and sometimes the squad, a little here and there on the Facetime or through messenger, because there’s something about your boyhood friends - but this, this is too vulnerable, too open, and Isak does not trust himself around others. Not when he is like this.

He should have called his father. But then, his father did not call him.

In the hospital, a nondescript residence for those who - as Isak’s father would say - are permanently kept - was quite beautiful, in a stately fashion. Isak would like to think his mother enjoyed her time here. The impassive white brick reflected the light, what there was of it, geraniums spilling out of their pots. A small maple sat in a small perch near a bench. Ivy grew up the lattice around the courtyard entrance. He spots a bench by a small pond, and thinks of her in her outdated shearing jacket, and winter boots, sitting there and watching the fish swim around and around.

He spends most of the afternoon there signing papers; her body to be buried, her will to be executed, her memorial to be held at her intended church of choice - and  - of what existed  - personal belongings to be collected. The nurse, Ingrid, had been reserved with him in a way that was not unwelcome; Isak is not sure he would be able to handle tenderness at this moment. She is the one to bring him up to his mother’s room.

He looks to her and nods once. He dares not speak.

Inside, her room is not how he pictured, because he never pictured it. When away in Berlin, he had tried not to ever imagine how his mother was doing, because he always fantasised the worst: that she was confused, or mistreated, or missing him so badly she would claw her face like she used to when the episodes were particularly terrible. So instead he did as he had with everything that had caused him pain thus far in his life: he had made her a small, small insignificance to him, and put her in a small, small box in his brain, and kept it locked.

Now, though, it was impossible to deny her existence, her significance. As if he had walked into a makeshift, pitiful monument to him: Isak and his greatest accomplishments, from birth to Nissen to university and beyond. First his baby pictures, which were the most plentiful, and designed in arrays that he could only imagine she displayed with pride; second, his school photos, watching as the haircuts and the teeth changed as he aged, and lastly, his graduation, the last family outing she ever attended. The photos disappeared only to be followed by a handwritten letter; a graduation photo he did not take, his acceptance to Bard. A school newspaper clipping with his name on it. Then, a single postcard from Berlin, which he had sent her the September he had arrived in the city.

The second part of the room were covered in postcards he did not recognise. He lingers amongst them: a postcard of a Temple somewhere in the mountains, a museum in Paris, a mountain range in Spain; a bright blue shore on a city painted honey yellow. There must be ten of them in total, a decoration of places which had no obvious connection. He imagines a dreadful scene in which a sympathetic nurse gives his mother, pathetic and feeble, sick with pneumonia, waiting every day for a letter, a call that never comes. He wonders if they just served as reminders of the places she’d never been.

After that, there are no more relics for display.

“She kept many diaries, which we are happy to pass on along with all her other personal belongings. She was often very impressed by your travels,” Ingrid said. When Isak looked to her, he realised with surprise that she had not crossed the threshold into the room.

He does not correct her that it was one singular travel; to one city. It doesn’t really matter now.

Isak stands there, alone, his heart caving in. Finally he reaches his fingers out to touch the handwritten letter, only to find he recognises the writing. It’s small enough to fit into the size of his palm.  He does not let himself get close enough to read it, his heart was beating too fast, his stomach sinking like a stone.

“Thank you. I’ve left my hotel address with the paperwork where this can be shipped to,” he said quietly, and then cleared his voice. “Anyway. I think this will be it for me, today.”

Ingrid nods once, stepping back to allow him room to exit. “Of course. I’ll meet you down at the entrance for checkout.”

He knew this may be against protocol, but she gave him a moment to let it sink in without her as witness. He breathes, feeling the air against his windpipe, knowing he cannot bear to stay a moment longer. In a moment of panic, he rips the letter off the wall and shoves it into his pocket, before leaving the room entirely. Isak does not look back.

-

 

[FREDAG 17:56 ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2-1u8xvk54)

He should call Jonas. He should do this.

Instead, Isak walks through Stensparken until it remains behind him, then he wanders through the streets until he finds a Vinmonopol and buys himself a bottle of whiskey. Then he buys another before he leaves and packs it away in his rucksack. He’s not the most voracious drinker, but then in Berlin, it was difficult to compare to most of the company he kept now, who were able to sink him easily under the table once they turned to liquor. He had been grown on Tuborg and Pilsners since he turned thirteen, and this had not changed too much about him.

He drank continuously, as he walked through Homansbyen and the rows of turreted apartments, as corner shops and KB’s became familiar, and his hands stopped being cold after a while and his head started to swim with all that he could no longer control. Internally, he felt himself sigh as he became drunk, because at least the jagged edges in his brain hurt less when they picked on him. From the offset, he still looks young, and any passerby must have assumed - so much as Isak could pretend to know - that he was just a student, getting drunk. What day was it even? Did it truly matter?

Not to Isak. His head swam with images of his mother; at 18, on his graduation, one of the last times he remembers seeing her. She had been wearing light blue, and make up, and he had remembered how much this had effect of him, that she looked normal, presentable, and even beautiful. He thinks of her smell when she would come in to wake him up in the mornings when he was in grade school, dressing him up in a layer of wool before slipping him into his snowsuit. He remembers, more than anything, the way her voice sounded, when she said his name, and how, even now in his memory, it always sounded like she was calling him from another room.

In his stupor he is able to think of her, and like a door breaking its lock, the memories shuffled out in such succession he felt it could possibly kill him. He stumbles through snow drifts into neighbourhoods he knows so well, only a short time ago: now, and now, things were different, even when they looked the same.

It’s not until he passes the street leading to Slottsparken that he looks and realises how close he is to Nissen. He’s been walking for hours. Does he dare? He thinks to himself. He pauses on the corner for a moment before setting down his nearly empty bottle. Does he dare? Instead, he spits on his fingers until they are wet and hot again, wipes them on his coat, and goes to pull out papers to roll a cigarette. Another Berlin gift, straight from the clubs in Neukölln to his nicotine stained fingers. It's too cold tonight, like it is every night in Oslo, and it takes him a moment before he can truly roll it into something smokable.

He shifts his grip to the neck of the bottle, turning against the park towards his high school. Nissen is as he remembers it, and the image of it standing in the dark and in snow renders him incapable of producing a single thought for a moment. His heart lurches. Somehow, seeing this place again physically pains him almost like seeing the shrine his mother had created for him. Perhaps one bleeds into the other.

The irony does not escape him entirely.

There, on a concrete bench with too little whiskey left, Isak sits, bows his head, and weeps.

-

 

LØRDAG 04:45

His parents were married in 1996, in Oslo in winter. His mother had been twenty three, only three years older than Isak is now, and he thinks of himself getting married, and is unable to picture himself marrying a man. Instead, his imagination produces a faceless woman, her outline intact but any distinguishing traits carefully blank. He tries not to think about why he does that, when he knows he won’t marry a woman, won’t even date women. He knows he likes men - knows that he is attracted to them, romantically and emotionally, but still unable to correct his imaginative leanings.

Sometimes, there are bones Isak will not pick at.

He thinks of her in white, with snow in her hair, and agrees with himself that she must have looked like an angel visiting from Heaven. He has never had any reason to believe in angels, but his mother did. Raphael, the all powerful; Michael, forever merciful; and Gabriel, piously beautiful, remained her most favoured. Sometimes she’d wake Isak late into the night, just before dawn would break again, to tell him that Gabriel had come down to visit her again, and warned her that Isak was at risk of eternal damnation.

Once, in a particular fervour, Isak became Gabriel, and his mother tried to wash his feet. Once, she became convinced his dirty feet disrespected God, and she had made him stand outside in the cold without shoes on. Here is a memory he never revisits: the look on his father’s face was when he had arrived home, the shame, the screaming that followed. He blamed her, and Isak blamed himself.

In these delusions, there was always hope that Isak could save himself if he were to act a certain way, accomplish specific tasks God had set for him. And then one day, there was no hope left, and she spoke as if Isak was already condemned to Hell.

He tries not to think anymore, but the memories cycle through, and when he finally falls asleep, he dreams of his mother, dressed in white.

 

-

 

SØNDAG 01:01

Isak does not sleep. He does not think of the letter in his pocket, with the handwriting he recognises. He does not think of his mother in white - a dream which cost him many more hours of sleep, and where, overwhelmed by his emotions and reduced to a mere presence which occupies space; no longer was he human, but only tangible grief -

He sits in the tub without any water, because it is the only place in the apartment without corners. His head rests on the porcelain, and tries not to cry. He doesn’t want to hear his own echo. He thinks of her, of his dear dead mother, and he wants to cry for her, but he can’t. He drinks until his head swims, and his stomach sloshes uncomfortably, and because he knows nothing else, he drinks a little more.

 

-

 

[MANDAG 12:33](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2r8Hhjw9VcE)

The package arrives three days after Isak had visited the hospital in Fagerborg. His rather suspicious underpriced Airbnb room he was renting just behind Bygdøy Allé, a street he knew to avoid as a kid because it was always cursed with pedestrian traffic. Yet, in the haze of panic and shock over his mother passing, and trying to book somewhere that won’t send him into a total spiral, he somehow ended up just in thick of tourist central. Close enough to be familiar, but far enough away to be safe, he had tried to assure himself naively, that he would not chance any accidental visits to his old haunts. It was a shortsighted attempt, he knows this now.

Even on the first day, Isak went to those wounds willingly, and prodded at them, like they were still fresh.

In the box, there are six journals, his baby photos, that stack of postcards. Now that he has his mother’s belongings, he feels the urge to flee again. He could go: technically, he did his part. He showed up. He signed the papers; he claimed his mother back. But the idea of missing her funeral, a funeral which no one but him - and possibly his father - may attend, filled him with such a bright sadness that he knows he can’t leave yet.

His phone call to his father goes straight to voicemail. Isak feels as if he’s speaking into a void when he leaves a message. He knows, as his stay rolls into the third day, that he should - he should call Jonas. Goddamn it, he should call Jonas.

He books the funeral at Nordre Gravlund, near her childhood home. The Sagene Church nearby had been one of her favourites - many turrets, red brick, a real 19th century piece of older, religious Oslo that Isak never took any interest in. Now, as the tram leads him through Vogts street and its many cafes and shops, he thinks of an Oslo his mother may have known as a child, of tree lined parks and industrial mills and the quiet - that Norsk stillness that he cannot name as otherwise - he knows he cannot leave.

He owes this to her. His brain flips between how much he loved her, and how angry he is - an anger he thought he had done well with leaving behind in Oslo. Now he knows that this too, was foolish - that anger is merely energy, and therefore will transform at his will, into forgetting, into hiding, but it never truly disappears, and never truly dies.

He nurses a hangover this morning like he has not felt since last summer at Fusion Festival. His head aches something fierce, unbidden with raw nerves he tries very hard not to agitate. The night before, he had gotten drunk again, by himself, and sat in the empty bathtub of the Airbnb, curled up against an unforgiving porcelain and taking the complimentary bath salts and flinging them against the tile. They fell like tiny pebbles, and he ground them up with the base of his bottle until they were little more than sand.

For the rest of the day he sleeps.

 

-

 

TIRSDAG 23:38

Isak tries not to picture her in that room, surrounded by photos of him. He tries not to wonder why she never wrote him, but he knows why he never _really_ wrote her. A few birthday and Christmas cards don't really count. He is ashamed. Now, in death, it didn’t really matter how she was - only that she was his mother, something he could never quite grasp when she was here on earth with him. He could have visited Olso to see her  - he could have written her, or called her, or texted her, and yet he remained silent. Now she is silent forever, and it is him who has been left behind.

 

-

 

ONSDAG 10:12

Three days before the funeral is to be planned, he calls Jonas. At first, he doesn’t answer, and he knows it must be because - because its an unknown number. Isak knows it is not _him_ , rationally; that Jonas is not ignoring him, because he couldn’t possibly know that Isak is home (not home, anymore, he corrects himself. In Oslo.) So therefore he could not be angry for Isak, because he hadn’t known he was here, or that his mother has passed, or that Isak avoiding calling him. No, it is definitely because of it’s an unknown number.

But Isak cannot wait for him to perhaps ring, or perhaps not - instead he texts him, then, quickly:

Til JONAS 11:22 / _Its Isak, I have a new number. I am in Oslo, something has happened. Call me when you can._

It is only ten minutes later before he has a reply:

JONAS 11:32 / _kan vi møte for kaffe?_

It strikes him, how often he would see Jonas typing that when they were in school. How often they would meet - not often for coffee, when they were younger,  but for kebabs, or pizza, after school. And how they would sit and talk, of a nature of all things under the sun. Mostly, when things started to become worse at home, Isak would disappear into himself and let Jonas talk to him about everything, the words washing over him like a wave of calm. It was those moments he felt most at peace.

 

-

 

[ ONSDAG 14:47 ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3gnxO8bUxQ)

They meet at Pascal because it is near where Isak is staying, and his head's been pounding for an hour. He's not slept - sleeping all day from the hangover rendered him incapable of being able to sleep that night. And so he had stared at the ceiling, transfixed on his mother, thinking for an indefinable pass of time; what her hands used to look like, in the various ways she used them - to hold, to handle. To hurt. These memories, now unleashed, are potent, and attack him at whatever corner he rounds. He cannot protect himself from them, and the vulnerability makes him vigilante, angrier than before.

It was a trendier cafe than he would ever admit he enjoyed - in Berlin, there lie a pocket of artisan coffee that he knew he would have scoffed at being in Oslo, but given they often relied a sense of expat belonging, his heart had softened against their wall-to-wall plant arrangements, the minimalist decor, and its overpriced espresso. Different to Berlin, Pascal reminded Isak too much of things he’d rather forget, because the second he steps inside, he knows that he wants to leave.

Jonas stands when he sees him. He appears nearly the same, save for the comfortable expression of someone who has settled into themselves. Upon closer look he is growing into his face, much like Isak has done the last few months especially. His jaw defined, shoulders broader still, but his bright eyes and curly hair remaining intact. Isak doesn't bother with greetings. He just steps to him, around their tiny settee and miniature table, and hugs him. He can feel Jonas’ surprise, at first, before sinking into the embrace, his arms coming to wrap around Isak’s shoulders and holding him closer than they had been since they were boys. Jonas smells almost the same as he remembers. It is all Isak has not to break then and there.

“It's - well - good to see you. How are you? What’s happened?” Jonas doesn’t waste any time; Isak is internally grateful. As he sits, he realises there is already a coffee sitting there for him, and he takes it, allowing himself a moment to bask to be in Jonas’ company. He should have called him earlier.

“It's good to see you, too,” Isak says, and then he heaves himself up to bat. Flatly, his eyes relaying nothing but blankness, he states: “My mother has died.”

Several things wash over Jonas in that moment, none of which are emotions Isak wants to pick at. Instead he stares at the pockets in his foam and how they burst the longer his coffee sits. He waits for Jonas to say something, anything. Jonas surprises him by moving his hand to place directly over Isak’s, his skin warm and a little sweaty. Isak startles, looks at Jonas’ freckled hand the small dark hairs covering the top of his wrist. Remembers a distant time when, he was fifteen and he would have given anything for Jonas to touch him like this. Now, it feels too tender, too close for Isak, and he cannot find the power in him to respond, to say anything first.

He nods, dumbly, not able to conjure his voice. It is painful to swallow. Finally, Jonas removes his hand. Clears his throat and says - “I'm so - I'm sorry, Isak. When is the funeral?”

“Three days from now. Saturday,” Isak states numbly, he feels the exhaustion seep into the crevices of his consciousness. “If you're busy, or have work to do, I will understand if you cannot attend.”

A pause. Then. “No. Of course I am not busy. Of course not for this,” his hand hovers, but he doesn't move to touch him again.

Isak cannot look up, for fear he might break in the face of Jonas’ sadness, his pity for Isak. He can feel it radiate in waves off of him, and like when he was 17, he yearned for a time when he could use Jonas as a vessel to leave his own life, disappear into his stories, and never return.

So he says as much, in his own way. “I can’t really talk about it, not here,” he says quietly, biting at the inside of his cheek. “But it would be great, if you wanted, to tell me about what you’ve been doing.”

A lesser friend would have insisted on the stage being centered on Isak, because he has returned to Oslo; because his mother has just passed away; because it's rude to only speak of yourself in conversation. But Jonas is no mere friend, even after these years, and Isak is filled with eternal, almost overpowering affection for him, when, after a beat, he begins, with seemingly little effort, to rattle off anecdote and tales of his life at OlsoMet.

-

 

[ONSDAG 19:23](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSXzMrcpAks)

Jonas refuses to leave him, even after they finish their coffees, and the cafe has begun to close. Instead brings Isak to a bar nearer to his university, where they sit side by side in a corner table near the window, Jonas shoulder nearly grazing Isak’s arm every time he shifts. Only after a few drinks can Isak start to pry himself open, and he feels Jonas relax in response, for the first time since they met this afternoon. It is then that Isak begins to tell him about Berlin, and how different the city is to Oslo, but also in some strange ways, similar, too.

“It is constantly beating - a city with a pulse, but no heartbeat,” Isak has used this before to illustrate what he means. “Unlike Oslo, there is no defined ‘center’ because of the wall, so instead it is just this super - spread out city that….feels different, honestly, sometimes even by the corner that you turn,” Isak explains. “Like...it is a city that, unravels, for you, if you learn to look hard enough, and listen.”

Then he smiles a little sheepishly. “Of course, the music, and the parties...like nothing I ever knew, man, especially not growing up with you guys, the lame-asses that we were.”

Jonas smiles, “It sounds fucking amazing, okay? I know the parties in Berlin are like no other in ….fuck, maybe all of Europe? And you were right along with us, at every stupid ass party, every little Nissen party.”

The sound of Nissen being spoken aloud snaps Isak back from his Jonas-tinted stupor, and it leaves a bitter taste in his mouth. Of course, he is being ridiculous and over-sensitive, and hopes it does not leave an impression on his face, because the last thing he needs Jonas to feel insecure about it is how Isak feels about Nissen, and more importantly, how Isak feels about returning back to Oslo. Jonas would call it coming home, and Isak is not strong enough to face this yet.

But maybe Jonas knows him better still, even after this time, than Isak would like to think, because he says, a little coyly, “Have you...contacted anyone else, about, you - being back?”

Isak shakes his head, looks at the rim of his beer without interest. “No. Just you, just today.”

Jonas heaves one of those paternalistic sighs that he has perfected since high school. “Isak. I know that everyone who is still here - Mags and Vilde, Madhi - Eva, Noora, Eskild, Sana - they’d want to know, they’d want to be there. And - ”

“My mother is dead,” Isak interrupts him, landing the desired effect of silencing him. “I was not thinking about who to invite, right away.”

Jonas looks at him in dismay, or pity, Isak cannot tell. Finally he bows his head a bit. “Alright. But you have to tell Magnus, Madhi - they’d want to know. And Eva, man. Eva will kill you if she knew you didn’t even let her know you’re home. And she’ll kill me, too, once you leave again.”

It is the first time anyone has mentioned about time - about coming back, yes, because it is the best way to surmise the start of Isak’s existence back in Oslo without using the words ‘dead mother’ - but neither Isak nor Jonas had mentioned leaving. Isak cannot see any day or what it may look like past the funeral, as it looms before him. Now, with Jonas here, all of this falls into a neat little time line that Isak can picture - come back to Oslo, bury his mother, leave again. Case closed.

It doesn’t feel so easy. Instead it feels like he’s picking splintered bones out of his skin, piece by piece, and still he is not fully convinced he’s extracted all of them carefully enough. Like they are embedded in him, this city, and these ghosts, and they move around under his skin when he’s otherwise distracted.

He knows what he has to do. “I’ve got to talk to them - er, Eva, first. Then the rest. And if you want, you can spread the word, too,” he feels uneasy, even sitting side by side with Jonas like this, talking about their old friends. For Jonas, leaving Nissen was no grand departure, no burning of the bridges. And on the outset, for Isak - it isn’t either. But it feels he’s unearthing things that he long since had buried, after moving to Berlin. It was easier for him to not look back.

 

-

 

TORSDAG 00:11

Jonas deposits him back at his Airbnb, and in his drunken haze, he invites him inside.

“Why on earth you wanted to be so close to sentrum,” Jonas remarks, but says little else. He had told Isak he was in a flat share in Tøyen with a couple of other students in his degree program.

Isak shrugs, dropping his entire body backwards onto the end of the bed, his limbs languid and heavy with every movement. His mouth feels numb, the room swimming around him.

“I just wanted to be in and out,” Isak says, though he knows technically he needs to give no real excuse. But he feels like he should anyway, because its been on his mind. This was not exactly like him - or who he was here growing up. “Wasn’t thinking so much, anyway.”

“No,” Jonas shakes his head. “Of course.”

He sits on the chair near the windows, which overlook rooftops and if Isak were to crane his neck, a small slice of the water. Jonas settles, his cheek in one hand.

Isak fixes him with a look best he can, though he knows his head is swaying slightly. “You don’t have to stay. I am fine. I will just pass out, I promise.”

Jonas doesn’t so much as move. “You never slept when we were in school.”

Isak waves a hand, knows he has lost all attempts at true finesse. “I haven’t slept since the day before yesterday. Trust me, I’ll pass right out. I don’t want to keep you.”

“Are you kicking me out?” Jonas raises an eyebrow.

Isak heaves a long sigh. He looks down at his shoes, attempts to toe them off one by one. It takes longer than he expects, and the silence hangs pregnant between them. Then he says, “No. I’m not.”

Jonas stands, like that’s that. He goes to put the kettle on in the galley kitchen, and Isak sits without agenda for a couple minutes, before he searches for his rolling tobacco and papers. He rolls, brings himself to the window and cracks it so he can smoke. Always feels best when he’s drunk and swaying on the spot, his head swimming with how exhausted he feels. He cannot bring himself to admit it, but his body floods with gratitude under the knowledge of Jonas staying.

He watches him from his spot. Jonas, taller than when they were in high school, but still not as tall as Isak, broad shouldered, hair still unruly. There is less boyish charm in him than he remembers, but Isak’s favoured memories of Jonas often revolve around when they were in first years and second years at Nissen, all soft edges and flush with youth.

Jonas turns around, eyebrow fixed on his cigarette. “Okay,” he says, but he means it in a _so this is a thing you do now. Fine._ “Here.”

The tea is welcome. Isak sits with it under his chin and lets the heat waft up and warm his face. “How have you been, really?” he asks.

Jonas considers this. “I think things have been okay. Sometimes I look around though and wonder if….”

“If this is all there is?” Isak guesses.

He nods. “Yeah. But uni is good, the guys I live with are cool, and summer between terms I’ve started with OlsoMet’s political editorial, a student led branch of the Socialist Appeal. Things are just...more intense, life more exhaustive, or exciting, or - just, more. There’s more of everything.”

“Seems like the idea, to me,” Isak hums. He’s close enough that he lifts his feet onto the edge of the bed.

He sips his tea now that it’s cooled, decides: chamomile. But maybe its just white tea, or hot water with nothing in it. He’s still too drunk to tell the difference. He’s distracted, and distraught, barely holding that feeling of panic at a safe distance.

Something about Jonas sitting on the end of his bed, across from him, just sitting with him in a moment he’d spent the last few years trying to avoid thinking about, and how they both nurse a small silence. It should feel stifled, or awkward, and it is, a little, for Isak. But mostly it comforts him, without so many words to express it, him being there, still existing, for Isak, in this way.

So he says, “I hadn’t spoken to my mother in nearly the two years I’ve been away.”

Jonas looks down, physically pained to hear this. Isak starts to stare at a wrinkle in the duvet from where he kicked it earlier, and how he wants to smooth it out. His view does not stray from it.

“She deserved a better son than me,” Isak’s tone sounds is strangely void of emotion,  yet the edges of his speech rely a telling quiver. “She was just ...abandoned, and now she’s dead.”

“Isak,” Jonas says his name like a warning, and Isak knows how that sounds, has heard it his entire life. Jonas fixes him with a look, caught short of being able to actually articulate anything.

Isak scoffs. He stands, rubbing his gritty eyes, “I have to pass out now before I sober up.”

Without another word, he drains his tea and kicks his jeans off, curling up underneath the duvet on left side. Only the partial moonlight illuminates corners of the room. He feels like he’s sinking into the mattress, his entire body exhausted and loose limbed with the day’s weight, saturated in the dizzying haze of too much to drink.

“You can either go whenever, or crawl in,” Isak yawns, and he doesn’t wait for Jonas to reply before he rolls over.

 

-

FREDAG 09:30

He wakes to only an imprint left in the sheets.

A message from Jonas on his phone:

JONAS 08:40 / _Gone back to the flat, class at 10. Will text you after. Make sure you text Eva._

He sits up. Answers an email from his manager Tobi, inquiring how long he should block him out of the schedule. He assures Isak: Stay how long you need. The information desk doesn’t need you so badly. So be honest. Does he need a week longer? Two?

Isak doesn’t know, but he asks for one, to hold himself accountable. He can’t stay in Oslo longer than is necessary. He tells himself it's because he doesn’t want to.

Then he stares at his phone, tries to text Eva. _Hey, its Isak. Long time, I know -_

Then again. _Hi Eva, its Isak. I know its been a while, but I just -_

Not right. _Hi Eva, Its Isak. Sad to tell you my mother died, I know you haven’t heard from me in a long time but -_

Not right either.

Finally, he calls. On the second ring she answers. “Halla?”

“Hi, Eva,” Isak grounds out, his voice coming out all breathy. “It's Isak.”

 

-

 

[FREDAG 20:17](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2d8Qe8C3aE)

Eva invites him out for a drink. At first she’s visibly hesitant, unsure if they’re even really friends anymore; their last year of Nissen they had been able to build back upon a tentative friendship, revolving mainly around partying together. When he starts to explain, though, her face undergoes an understanding, and after two more drinks, she’s sidled up next to him and being more attentive than he ever remembers. It’s nice to have someone he’s know forever be this friendly, in the very Eva fashion that seems to capture half the attention of the room.

He appreciates her ability to drink him under the table with a cute goading laugh and a sharp elbow. They sit at a bar called _Revolver_ , some kind of basement establishment that Isak has never been to, but the music is loud enough so the talking remains relegated to mostly drinking and paves the way for a teasing, lighthearted conversation between them. He even laughs a couple of times without having to think about it first. 

It’s what he wants, without realising how to ask for it.

Eva is more beautiful than he remembers. Her hair has grown so long since he last saw her. Isak can’t help but stare a little, only because he can finally understand (or more reasonably, accept) how enchanting she was. Her noise, as she laughed riotously when a bartender nails her about some private joke, seeps into every crevice of his body. Her chipped nail polish she she gripped her drink, and bought Isak a shot, and then another. That tawny hair where the tips drag through the bar’s wet surface. They way she tugs him along, and he feels proud for a moment, to be seen with her. It’s silly, really, but he does. 

She tells him about work, about her friends; the ones he knows,  Noora, Sana, Vilde, Chris. They're studying or working or both, just like him. And new friends that he doesn't, people she’s met around through the her job and her party circuits. She tells him about her new neighbourhood, the random boys who she's lost interest in, the boss she doesn't really care for. She's started sleeping with women, which he finds surprisingly, but he is careful not to let it show too much on his face. When you say something like that, people are always watching for your reaction. He knows this intimately, having been searching for it in the faces of others over half his life. She does it all and presses drink after drink pressed into his hands, in that coy, effervescent way of her’s. He drinks in her presence, drunk enough he can pretend in another universe this is like any Friday night. One where he stayed. 

 

-

 

[LØRDAG 00:19](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnesEwfQ0Cw)

Eva doesn’t ask too many questions. Instead she gets him good and drunk and then she takes him to the Villa, where he’s introduced to many faces he knows he’ll forget, and a few perhaps he won’t. She drags him to a crowded unisex toilet, and shoves him into a stall; he fixes her with a suspicious look until she rolls her eyes.

She fixes him with a look of reproach before digging through her pocket for something. “Here, take this. It’s mdma.”

He takes it, like he’s taken it before in Berlin, and one time just after they all finished Nissen, and Jonas had bought it - swallows it whole, without blinking as Eva watches him with a smug twist in her mouth. Not exactly a smile. She nods approvingly.

“Here’s to hoping this helps,” she unlocks the door and then turns to him. “Just dance, tonight. And forget to worry about the rest until tomorrow.”

He takes her advice, and her hand, and she pulls him out onto the dance floor. House music plays. He finds it soft at first, too melodic. What he used to just group together as typical techno saturated Russ music when he was a teenager, his understanding of club music has evolved since moving to Berlin. In Oslo clubs, which close at a meek three  or four in the morning, the music varies from safe zone to safe zone, and sometimes fails to push the crowd to the limits of their own taste.

Or maybe everything was just so fucking intense there.  Whereas Isak's grown accustomed - and dare he say it, _affectionate_ to his favoured scenes in Berlin, now he feels lighter under the tempo her. The beat more fluid, less dense. The lights change with the music and he faces them with his eyes shut, feel the reds brush across his cheeks, the greens on the inside of eyelids. Eva laughs, whirls him around, holds him close, keeps him at bay.

He is grateful. He is feeling, loving, and eternally grateful for her. He tells her as much. She laughs, touches her fingertips to his face, shares her smile only with him.

They dance around each other, and with others, the colours changing again, a shuttering beam which renders Isak incapable of making out any faces. His lungs fill with elation, then drop back into his ribcage, then up into his throat. He finds himself laughing without any purpose, and thanks whatever heaven exists that this didn’t spiral into a bad trip.

The set changes, or the DJ changes, and Eva takes him by the hand and drags him out into the smoking courtyard, where only the distant burst of the bass can be heard.

“Smoke with me?” she produces a joint, and he raises his eyebrows at her, though at this point he supposes he shouldn’t be surprised.

“Didn’t realise you were such a _party-girl,_ ” he teases in English, but takes it after she tokes a couple times. Eva stands and smokes casually enough that he assumes she must do this often enough not to worry too much about the rules. “You need to come to Berlin.”

“I will come, when you invite me, Isak,” Eva says with only the slightest edge to her voice. "But it sounds fun."

Isak has enough decency to feel sheepish. He ducks his head. “Yeah. About that. I'm sorry, I haven’t been so easy to...reach, or like, coming back to Oslo… that often.”

“That is an understatement,” she says, but she is saying it through a smile. “You ghosted.”

He has nothing to say to this. He knows it’s true.

“Hey,” he feels her hand touch his shoulder, caressing, gently. “It’s okay, Isak. Look, shit happens. We understand why.”

“You do?” He is weak, asking for her assurance, but he can’t help it. There's a teetering edge in his gut that feels like splinters. Anxiety of his heart swooping and rising again. Could be the mdma. Could be his morbid fucking arrival. He wonders if she'll say his name. He wonders if she'll go there, and bring him up, and blame him for Isak's lack of returning. It wouldn't be fair. It's his own fault. 

Eva only nods, her lip tucked between her two front teeth. She is beautiful, he thinks to himself dumbly, like he has known her before and has just recognised Eva for who she is again.

“It may have broken Jonas’ heart, just a little, when you didn’t come home for the summer. But we all knew that you wanted to go to Bard. And we all know - I mean, it's not like any of us tried that hard either. But the point is, you can always come back,” she smiles at him in an arresting way, almost too cheerful before, passing the joint.

Isak is not strong enough to tell her that she is breaking his heart, too, by telling him this, telling him there is an Isak-shaped hole left in their lives here after he went to university. Because it's easier to think _he_ was easy to forget, that he left no real imprint on their lives. It wasn't even that long ago they were all still seeing each other in that grey courtyard. Or in group chats. He used to think it didn’t matter, and now it’s becoming quickly apparent that this is the farthest fucking thing from the truth.

It does matter. It does.

It must show on his face, because Eva’s face screws up, her arms coming up to wrap around his shoulders.

“It’s okay, Isak,” she murmurs into his hair, and he feels his face screw up in an effort not to lose it. The elation he felt inside is not what he feels now, the threat of bursting at every seam he’s so carefully constructed.

He takes a moment. Breathes.

The party drums on without them. Eva holds him awkwardly at her side, one hand smoking and the other wrapped around his neck, her fingers through his hair. For a moment he thinks he could sit like this forever and not deal with what is impending. But these are foolish thoughts, filled with mistaken hope, and he hates hope more than anything.

“Let’s go. Not home, to another club. I said I'd meet someone there later,” she says after he kills the roach, flicks it into a bin at the door. Oslo is so much cleaner than Berlin, so much more sterile. Even the clubs feel well-kept. He wobbles, a bit, upon standing, feeling another peak approaching and his head swimming in a stoned  haze.

“Okay,” he agrees, and for the third time that night, allows Eva to pull him gently along.

 

-

 

[LØRDAG 01:58](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9m4jpMkS8oM)

Maybe it's a bad idea to come to another club. Eva seems to know a few people sitting outside this club, too - but Isak notices the change in vibe here: more open, radical, different - and _gay._ There is no mistaking the flag hanging behind the security into the club. A man sitting with a Mohawk and pink glittery eyelids looks at him impassively as he ushers them in through a door to the side, and it does remind Isak then of Berlin: grimy, unusual, only slightly alarming.

“This place always has the best drinks, the best people,” she says over her shoulder as they skip through crowds of people alongside the hallways. The music is deeper here, more industrial, harder. “I had some of the best nights here.”

She presses another pill into his mouth, and he takes it, kissing the tip of her thumb in the process. The feelings he had for her when they were at Nissen - silly, fumbling feelings that he negated and pushed away for his own survival; the truth is he never hated Eva. Being fifteen trapped in that house coated his insides with a poison, a sickness which derived from a lot of things. A lot of resentment. Definitely jealously. _Her_ mother was never home. _She_ could invite her boyfriend over any time. She came in between them so rapidly, like a natural disaster. Jonas's slipping attention and unrequited love left a bitter taste in his mouth.His attendance was slipping. Sometimes his father didn't come home for days a time, and he couldn't do it all his own. He had to hide the keys. He had to break the lock on his door. He had to break a lot of doors it felt. No one seemed really to notice. He thought it meant they didn't care.

Now. Now isn't then. Now they’re older, and she touches him like she knows he will not read into it. Trusting, easy. So he slips his arm around her shoulder until they appear in front of a bar. He had forgotten how nice it was to be understood in this way. There's no advance in her touch. Only comfort. A small voice inside his head says: _she knows you. She's known you for years._

Isak sees Even before Even sees him: tucked in the shadows behind the bar, pouring a drink for someone else a little farther down than they. He feels his tongue swell up in his mouth like he might swallow it. Isak cannot breathe, and he cannot look away. His entire profile is light and shadow. Even is not smiling, but he isn’t unhappy, either: he looks up at whoever he’s serving through his lashes, his jaw taut, his mouth curved in just the ghost of a smirk. Isak feels a stone sink in his gut.

His mind is racing, until Eva nudges him, jarring him out of his daze for all about two seconds. His heart in his throat, he turns back to a bartender who is less than impressed, probably because he thinks Isak is fucked out of his head, and Isak orders hastily, pays too much, and backs away from the bar like it may explode any second.

By the time their drinks are ready - did he really order a vodka cranberry? What the _fuck_? - he can’t make his body move fast enough. Eva doesn’t understand as he pulls her towards the back of the club, through thickets of people dancing, to the back garden, where people stand in circles, smoking. The air is punctured with cigarettes and weed, and it makes Isak want to smoke so badly, but his hands are shaking. His hands are fucking shaking.

“ _Fy Faen_ , Isak, what the fuck - ?” Eva laughs, rounding on him when he finally releases her arm. He feels out of breath, but elated, giddy in his anxiety like he’s just gone down the steepest roller coaster. He wonders if she gave him the same kind of MD.

“Needed - fresh air,” he nods - almost to himself, feeling his pulse start to race, his heart in his ears. She laughs like she doesn’t believe him, and he sits on a concrete block next a bloke who looks like he could run a prison gang somewhere, and gives it his best attempt to a roll a cigarette.

He nearly gives up, because he can’t seem to get his fingers to work correctly and it’s pathetic, actually, how piss poorly he’s doing, until there’s some standing directly in front of him, too close to go unnoticed. “Need some help?”

Fuck. Isak looks up, and his stomach drops again, his mouth full of dust. Standing above him is a feeling he’d long forgotten - wrapped up in a person: Even looks just as statuesque and beautiful as the last time Isak saw him, standing at Jernbanetorget station, in the middle of the night.

He cannot speak, but hands over the papers and filters and his tobacco, and Even laughs gently, takes them carefully from his hands and rolls it for him. Isak watches in what he’s sure is a stupor, as Even licks up the center of his cigarette and passes it back to him, perfectly symmetrical, the seams unbearably straight.  Then, with only a raised eyebrow as permission, he rolls his own.

“Halla,” Even smiles, and Isak thinks, fuck, fuck, fuck.

“Halla,” Isak returns, when he realises he hasn’t spoken. His cigarette dangles between his lips, and he searches for his lighter clumsily. But then Even produces a light for him, and he feels some part of his brain sigh (eternally, forever)- fucking Even and his smooth transition, his own special brand of quiet cool. It smacks Isak in the face.

“Well, you were the last face I expected to see here on a Friday night,” Even smiles again, his fingers so elegant as they hold his cigarette, that Isak cannot stand to look away. “You weren’t, by any chance, trying to run away from me in there, were you?”

Fuck. Fuck, fucking fuck - fuck. Isak shakes his head, tries to count his pulse. “No, no - I was just feeling, very warm inside. Didn’t see you. And I don’t know where Eva is gone now, but I was with her - ”

Even smiles like he knows this is not true. Isak literally wants to sink into the ground and disappear forever. “I think I passed her talking to a group of girls. Did you want me to get her?”

“No!” Isak says, and then shakes his head, trying to calm himself. “No, that is fine. I’m okay to be sitting here, just…What are you doing here?”

Even raises an eyebrow at him. His hair is impressively sophisticated, fashioned  in a 1950’s style quiff that reminds Isak of _Grease._ “Well, I live here, in Oslo,” he says sarcastically, and Isak resists an eye roll. “And I work here, on Friday and Saturday nights.”

“You work...here,” Isak repeats back lamely. “Right. Well. Right.”

“It’s a good night, tonight. You seem a bit...” Even gesticulates and laughs, but it is not unkind. Isak knows Even used to love it when Isak would get like this - fucked up like _this_ , all tongue tied and warm to touch - and Isak stops this thought right in its tracks, rearing back like he’s been burned. And he has been burned, he thinks.

“Yeah, well,” Isak mutters, rubbing the back of his head, “I’m out with Eva, you can blame her.”

“No need to blame anyone,” Even shrugs, and to Isak’s internal delight and horror, sits where in the space where the guy before was occupying. Isak hadn’t even noticed he got up and left. “How - um. How long have you been back? You look...you look really good, Isak.”

Isak wants to fucking cry. He wants to disappear, and he can’t stop himself from thinking that every five seconds. But even as he thinks it, there’s a growing, more dangerous part of him that doesn’t want to disappear - that wants him to stay _exactly right here_ \- and the longer he sits next to Even, the more powerful this part of him becomes.  

The way Even’s voice sounds, he’s committing it to memory already. He realises he needs to speak if he’s going to hear him say more. “I’ve only been back since Friday. I’m here for another few days.”

He doesn’t need to be honest , but he is. Because it’s Even.

“Right,” Even says, and then, “Wow. It's nice to see you again. I wasn't not expecting to at all. I hope it's not a problem for you. But - I mean -”

“No, Even,” Isak starts, and almost feels the effect of saying Even’s name has on him, on Even too; like pure catharsis. Like a drug, Even’s pupils become almost black, and only the faint sound of the bass can be heard, below the talking around them. Isak clears his throat. “It’s. I - Of course it's good to see you, too. Fuck was I just unprepared, I guess.”

He winces, thinks of the way this sounds, of the way it paints Even to be a bull in a china shop, a feeling he’s always been insecure about. Isak’s flooded with memories of all the times Even felt he took up too much room, was too loud or excited or too - _manic_ \- that Isak can’t help but correct himself.

“It’s just that - I am not here for a well visit,” Isak clears his throat awkwardly, and find himself grateful to realise Even has conjured his tobacco and is rolling them another couple of cigarettes. He rubs his mouth, and finds his cheeks are numb in the cold, which he didn’t realise until now. Even waits for him to speak, waits for him to be ready. “Um….I just came back to, because my mother - she…”

Even notes the pause, and Isak imagines how he must look to Even right now, unable to find his words correctly, and thinks he’s must be some kind of shit cliche. Everything feels tangled up in his throat, and each word follows him around like a ghost all their own.

“Isak,” Even says slowly, rounding out each vowel in his name. “Is everything okay with your mother?”

Isak can’t bear to look at him, because he knows Even will read him like a book he’s flipped through a thousand times, and Isak is too fucked up - and fragile - to handle that now.

So he shakes his head no, and tries to swallow his grief. He takes the cigarette - again, perfectly rolled - from Even, and does not look at him.

Even lets out a heavy sigh. “How bad?”

Isak exhales, and a terrible, derisive laugh that sounds more like choking than anything else follows. “She’s dead.”

Things are still for a moment. Isak can feel his own heart still mercilessly beating; the bloom of cigarette smoke burning his eyes, the creeping grief crawling up his throat, the proximity of Even so close to him, after so long, fucking with his head - that he says, roughly, “Don’t bother with sorry. It doesn’t bring her back.”

“Of course,” Even agrees, his voice so tender it makes Isak want to retch, how a flip in octave threatens to wreck him. He shouldn’t have taken that last pill from Eva, because now he can’t control himself at all, and protect him from what hurts.

“I didn’t mean to be rude,” Isak sighs, and re-lights his cigarette. “You can say sorry, I didn’t mean to be - ”

“You can be however you want,” Even interrupts him, his voice firm. Isak braves a peek at him, and nearly regrets it, if Even wasn’t so fucking beautiful: earnest blue eyes, a pale strip of neck, a tiny, untamed blonde curl hanging in the middle of his forehead. “Remember, only you can feel what you feel.”

“Goddamn you, Even,” Isak shakes his head, feels his eyes threatening to spill over, then regains himself. “You know always what to say.”

“I know,” Even smiles, and just like that, they’ve bounced back from the moment. “It’s part of my infuriating charm, so I’ve been told.”

Isak feels his pulse quicken despite himself, his body unable to stop moving, his knees bouncing up and down. He realises that time does exist outside of this conversation, outside of running into Even - and he looks around. “I’m sorry, I must be keeping you from your job.”

But Even only flicks his hand without much care. “Oh, don’t you worry about that. They hardly need me right now, anyway.”

“Right,” Isak says, and then fails to find anything else to say. “I - I mean it, when I say s’good to see you. And I don’t think you need me to say, how _good_ you look, right?”

“But it means all the more that you’d say it,” Even grins, and as Isak predicts, does not even try to hide his preen. “It seems Eva has found herself a friend.”

Isak looks to where Even is staring, towards a far corner where Eva is sitting on someone woman’s lap, touching her pink hair with her finger and laughing loud enough for the whole courtyard to pinpoint her. Isak smiles at her, feeling emotional and affectionate.

“Good. She, um...took me out, because they know….” Isak stumbles through what he wants to say. Then he just decides, fuck it, and says what he really means. “They know - how hard it has been being back.”

Even takes this harder than Isak imagined he would; he can see him digest it. In a split second, Isak regrets his honesty, however justified it may be he feels this way. Even absorbs this comment like its a personal insult, or at least, he’s partially responsible for the outcome. And Isak knows, deep down, that he’s not wrong to understand what Isak means.

“Right,” is what he finally says, sounding very un-Even like for a moment; unsure. Grasping.

But Isak just shakes his head, and sips on his long-forgotten drink. “We don’t have to talk about it. Any of it. It’s just good...to see you again.”

“Well, by all means, we should drink to that,” Even clinks his glass against his, and Isak wonders distantly what he’s drinking, if he still drinks vodka-soda like he used to. He tries not to venture down that path. “To returning to places we’d never thought we’d be.”

Isak laughs, he can’t help it, drunk on the very moment between them, that only they can share. “To seeing faces we’d never thought we’d see.”

Even’s answer is only a bright, beautiful peal of laughter.

-

 


	2. Part II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter deals more in depth with internalised homophobia. And I know that SKAM is one of those great shows that portrays some amazing character development, and so take this as my own interpretation/projection. We can discuss it. I have thoughts.
> 
> Also, Even's coping/dealing with his illness will be discussed in the second part of the story. This is from Isak's point of view, therefore some things are left open/not dealt with thoroughly, and it is not my intention to handle topics like bipolar disorder with a light hand.

-

 

[LØRDAG 04:47](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9y22-aoNCg)

Walking along the shore beds of Akerselva river just before dawn breaks, next to Even Bech Næsheim, felt like an alternate universe.

Case in point:  They’re strangers, 20 and 22, meeting at a club in Oslo. They chat, smoke too much, one of them - Even? - asks the other - Isak?: _Hey, want to take a walk?_ So they end up walking together, along the Akerselva river, waiting for dawn to break. The sky is a milky pink, not a cloud in sight. They talk about their mothers, both alive. Neither of them exist in past tense yet.

Or -

Case in point: They’re not strangers; in this universe, they’re  _IsakandEven_. They go to the club together and leave together, sharing lines of MD and laughing into each other’s mouths. Men and women alike are jealous, flit to them like moth and the flickering lure of fire. At 4:30 Even says to Isak: Hey, want to take a walk? And because Isak is pink from too many shots, and he is beginning to feel lush and handsy, he agrees. They talk about their fathers like wounds they try to nurture. The dawn never breaks, instead settling into a dreary mist.

Or -

Case in point: They’re not strangers, but the kind of friends-of-friends which add an extra layer of allure. Who is that? Are they looking at me? Even never met Sonja; Isak never knew his mother. Both found each other on the shores of the Akerselva river just after a party, and they sit together in near silence before realising hey, dawn is breaking, and maybe we should walk? The sky is a blood red. No one gets hurt in this version, but no one falls in love, either.

In this universe, Eva goes home with the girl with pink hair, but only after Isak assures her for the 10th time that he’s fine to get a taxi, and he is still too high to move yet. This is not exactly true, but Eva’s nature is never to pry too deeply, especially when she has been drinking. And Isak truly does not want her to feel bad, because she has already done enough. He’s not sure the outcome of this night out will benefit him in the long term, but it certainly served its purpose tonight.

Purple creeps into the sky, hinting at morning, and Isak is smoking again outside the club, waiting for Even to finish his shift. Even comes out at just after half past, looking more  _human_  and insanely - unfairly more attractive in a pull over jumper and denim jacket, a hood pulled up around his hair. Isak feels incapable of reflecting on his current state, and is not in the mood for introspection. Instead, he only looks outward, at what is around him, and drinks it in, with indifference, with understanding.

They walk along the river. At one point, they pass Bakka, and Even only hints his acknowledgement. At first, Even makes small talk about his coworkers, the regular patrons, the club itself.

The pulling tide of the river is a lulling constant. Isak asks, “What have you been doing?”

“I’m at UiO, studying Fine Art. Working at the club on weekends and during the week, a cafe,” Even explains. “I took a year out to travel. So I’ve been studying for just a year.”

Isak knows. Isak knows because he looked Even up on Instagram, and buried the results within his brain. Just admitting he went sleuthing feels treacherous: he was in denial that Even was travelling at all - seeing the world, reflecting on it, eating up whatever the universe offered him. It was too painful a concept to entertain. He did not search him on Instagram again after that.

Yet, he still says, “I’m sure you loved being a traveller. Finally able to let your free spirit out.”

Even agrees with a small noise, caught in his throat. It’s new. “You could say travelling and I agreed very well. On most levels. It answered questions I had not yet learned to ask.”

Isak doesn’t respond. So Even says, hands dug deep in his pockets, a joint hanging so casually from his lips. “How - how have you been liking Berlin?”

He’s surprised, but shouldn’t be. He just did the same thing - touching what is painful, for the sake of pleasantry. For a moment, Isak thinks of how the boy he was three years ago would have found this entire conversation so utterly wrong; who were they to talk like strangers? Then he lets that thought go.

“A good fit,” is what he decides on, and then is disappointed in his lacklustre response. So he illustrates. “It is a city where I just feel I can be. There’s no pressure either way, and no one really asks too many questions, except for maybe the American students at Bard. But quickly they stop asking.”

“Oh?” Even smiles, an easy temperament in his mannerisms. “Meaning, you’re very grumpy until they give up trying to get you to go out with them?”

Isak can’t help it, he chuckles softly despite himself. His mouth twists of its own accord, brows set in a furrow to try to illustrate that he is not someone to be bothered. But it only serves to make Even laugh, his smile nearly splitting his face in two. Isak’s stomach swoops, and he thinks,  _oh_. There’s that feeling.

“I do go out, I do have fun, before you start to interrogate,” Isak retorts to Even’s look of disbelief. He passes the joint, and Isak takes it. The sky is a delirious, science fiction red, and the sun still hasn’t broken through the clouds. Isak is starting to feel the edges of sleep deprivation as the last remnants of his high begins to leave his system.

“Not my place to bug you about that,” Even shrugs, easy still, but Isak can tell he’s thinking, his eyes gauging Isak, like he’s trying to take a picture. “You aren’t someone who takes order from anyone, Isak Valtersen.”

Isak smiles. “Funny, you say that. I would express the exact same sentiment about you.”

They pass over the bridge, and for the first time since they’ve been walking that Isak wonders where they are going; further they walk away from the direction towards the sentrum. He doesn’t ask though, wanting to stay suspended in this moment before the next one comes up, where there will be more questions and more answers to be dealt with.

“How have you really been, though? Have you been happy?” Isak braves the question, because he has to know. When he had left for Berlin, and all he had left to claim of Even was an image of him standing there at Jernbanetorget platform, waiting.  

When he had left for Berlin, all he could do in the months following was obsess over Even, and him, and  _EvenandIsak_  and how it could have failed, and if you love someone, why doesn’t love solve everything? And every time - after the trials of anger, of humiliation, after letting go of the feeling Even once gave him, he came back to one question: Is his breathing? Is he happy?

Even shrugs, turning down a street then another one; a Saturday market is just beginning to set up. Isak keeps in stride with Even, despite his shorter legs.

“Happy is a relative concept, for a person like me,” Even says, but then he shares a small smile with Isak like it’s not all been so bad. “But things have improved, since Nissen. I’ve found ways to manage my head, and my heart, and my life, somehow, in a configuration that works.”

Isak digests this, and before he’s found the words to respond adequately, Even has come to a stop. “This is me. Want to come up? I mean, you’ve walked all this way.”

Isak eyes him, knowing his game and falling for it anyway - he should be better at this. But “better” is telling himself no when he wants to say yes, and telling himself he can’t have things when he wants them. Isak is tired, not just from being awake all night, but in that bone-heavy, everything's-been-on-fire-for-a-long-time kind of way. Isak is tired of telling himself to be better, when really, he just wants to be Isak.

“Okay,” he agrees. Even’s already holding the door open for them.

 

-

 

LØRDAG 08:09

Even’s apartment is shared between him and two girls, Hemi from Helsinki (A real winner when hosting parties, apparently) and Mari from Bergen. All of them at UiO, Mari in the same course as Even and Hemi studying sound editing.

Isak thinks, only a little bereft, that it's a pretty nice place. There’s a very obvious feminine touch, in the pink throw with coordinating pillows on a dark navy sofa and in the arrangement of their art. Mostly, the walls are a clean white; the East facing wall is comprised entirely windows which reveals a compact balcony overlooking Sofienbergparken. Light filters throughout the apartment like a relief. An Ikea bookshelf holds a top row of books on mindfulness and meditation, and Isak wonders if one of the girls dresses in gap-year trousers and has henna-inspired tattoos. He knows he’s being trite, but he’s met plenty of those types in Berlin. It’s only a guess.

On the wall near the bookshelf, is a print of an [Egon Schiele](https://www.egon-schiele.net/The-Daydreamer-Gerti-Schiele.html) he’d seen before. He wants to bet this is Even.

Even gestures he’s going to make them a tea, and starts to set up the kettle while Isak studies the living room. It reminds him of when he first came to Even’s flat when they were teenagers, how he had tried to take everything in a first and resorted digesting everything piece by piece, from the guitars to the lofted bed to the drawings. Now, everything feels suspended in time, even though the sky has broken out of its red glare into a haze of pink, and the pedestrian traffic has started as people began to bustle through their Saturday mornings. Behind him, Even hums absently.

Isak is grateful that he hasn’t seen Even’s room, and he’s caught between wanting to be shown it and not knowing its existence at all. He pictures Nas on the walls, and purple cotton duvets, a towel thrown over the closet door, still propped open for that exact purpose. He fears it would be so nostalgic that it physically causes pain. Contrarily, he knows two years have passed, and Even has travelled, and grown (in more ways than one) - and it could be different in a few ways, or every way. Isak thinks that a physical reflection of the life Even has constructed post-Isak may feel like the final nail in the coffin, another death he can’t quite accept.

The second he thinks it, the reminder of his mother blooms in the forefront of his mind like feeling the jolt of a near car accident, except that the impact lands all the same, the car does end up crashing, and he’s amidst the ruins, picking out shrapnel. The grief is crippling.

“Hey,” Even doesn’t touch him, but he has rolled a cigarette for them both - Isak really does need to prove he can do it, that he doesn’t just carry this shit around for show - and a cup of tea, concern drawn up in his face. “I forget how far away you are when you’re thinking.”

Isak doesn’t speak right away; he can’t. Instead he accepts the tea with a jerky nod, looking down at his feet for a moment. Even leads them outside on the balcony, where they sit on two chairs which are surprisingly more comfortable than Isak would have thought - or perhaps sitting on giant concrete blocks all night has lowered his standards.

He clears his throat. Says, “I just was thinking about how strange this night has been, and for a moment, I forget all about my mother.”

Even nods. “I can’t imagine how you feel right now.”

He doesn’t expect Even to say this - so much so that he says: “I would have thought, of everyone - you would understand the most, actually.”

“Why do you say that?” Even asks, and then he relaxes his shoulders, trying to make himself appear more approachable. Isak appreciates this. Distantly, he’s seen Even do it before when he was trying to get Isak to open up and communicate more. He further confirms Isak’s suspicion when he adds, “You can be honest.”

Isak goes for it. “Because you, of everyone I know, know what it's like to be afraid of how you feel, and what it can mean when you feel for other people.”

It's quite possibly the most articulate he’s ever been to Even without several hours of coaxing, and this shows on Even’s face as he absorbs what Isak is telling him. He’s not denying it, so Isak takes it as a cue.

“I missed out on a lot of time with my mother,” Isak admits, his voice very quiet, and then he takes a long drag, blowing out the smoke in a streamline. “What... I am feeling, or scared of feeling at its full capacity, is for her. And the time I never gave her.”

Even hums sympathetically. “But it is also a grief for yourself. Losing her is…losing a part of who you were, Isak.”

Isak bows his head, fingers pinching the bridge of his nose. He starts to shudder, until he’s crying, and his body does what it has always done: caved in on itself, his spine curling as he nearly hugs his knees. His tears unleash a watershed, a dam that can’t be hastily repaired now that it’s split clean open.

“Why didn’t I give her any of my fucking time?” he cries, and he can’t help repeating it, over and over to himself, a question he doesn’t want to ask, and doesn’t want to answer. Because it is senseless, now, with her gone, all the time he can’t get back. Isak had a mother, and he didn’t want her. Now he has no mother, and nothing could be further from the truth. “Now, she’s  _gone._ ”

She’s gone.

Isak doesn’t know how many minutes it takes until he subsides, but Even’s hand is a firm reassurance on his back when he finally is able to wipe his face, his chest heaving with tiny hiccups. His tea, now lukewarm, is waiting for him, and he takes a large gulp, trying to calm his nerves. If he wasn’t so exhausted, he might be more sheepish over just breaking down.

“I’m sorry,” he says finally, even though he knows Even will dismiss it. Which he does, with a quiet shake of his head. So Isak elaborates. “No, I mean, I’m sorry to just come over and bring this terrible cloud with me. It isn’t fair to you.”

Even only shrugs, looks out over the park, at the church covered in scaffolding. “I know what you're saying, and I want to tell you, that it's a lot different. How I manage my illness, and how much other people affect me.”

“Oh,” Isak says, his voice still shuttered, but he realises right away that if he’s still able to read Even, then Even can read him probably better than he’s letting on. It should make him feel uncomfortable, but in a wary way, it is comforting. Regardless, Isak says, “I didn’t mean to presume.”

“No, no,” Even dismisses him. He smiles. “You’re still so ridiculous. Apologising for becoming reasonably upset about something very upsetting - because of how it will affect  _me_. Christ, Isak.”

Even’s smile grows when Isak says nothing; he suspects it's because he looks sour. Even drinks his tea, and gestures towards his own tobacco in case of Isak wants to roll. Isak tries not to watch his fingers - so fucking graceful - because Even starts to talk again. First, he briefs it with a heavy sigh and a fixed look.

“Now, don’t laugh at me,” he starts, like Isak could even think of laughing at Even on a morning like this one. “When I was travelling, I ended up in northern India, working with this nonprofit trying to provide basic-support for parts of Kashmir that were particularly affected by Indian rule. One morning I woke up to get breakfast supplies down the road, and I saw a girl being beaten by military men. I froze on the street and did nothing - nothing to stop them, or alert anyone that I was there at all. I just watched.  And then a day or two later, I had a complete and total meltdown.”

He heaves another sigh. “I think they were worried - the people I was working with - that I would be in worse shape if I remained there. So one of the women - Kelly, this incredible Canadian woman I had met through this organisation, organised for me to go to Key Gompa and take some time. It’s this really unique experience, being so remote from anything you’ve ever known, with just the monks for company. I was able to stay in the servants quarters - and whilst earning my keep, I took up mediation. No one quite measures up to a Buddhist Monk when it comes to understanding and unlocking our mind’s greatest mysteries.”

“So, the meditation helped?”

Even nods, flicking briefly into the ashtray, his hair falling slowly out of his quiff. Isak takes him in: he looks rumpled and exhausted typical of the night they’ve had. But underneath that, he is peaceful, still in a way Isak has never quite seen him.

“It does, massively. It helps me center myself against intrusive thinking, which used to play a big part in how I would react to things - you know, triggered by shit that was happening in life. I mean, meditation works for me because I am learning to create a space in myself where I can retreat and respond to my thoughts, rather than just react. And it helps, in combination with a mood stabiliser, to keep the episodes fewer and farther between,” he smiles to himself, and shrugs. “Fy faen, it just helps with life in general, bipolar or not.”

“Why do you think it helped?” Isak can’t help himself - he never would have taken Even, of all people, to truly adapt to a lifestyle change so out of sync with his own mannerisms, but with a tinge of discomfort, Isak is realising more and more that the Even who he thought he knew, he doesn’t know anymore.

“Well, part of the principles of Buddhism is understanding that life is not without suffering, regardless,” Even explains, choosing each word like he’s trying to be careful. “We suffer simply by existing. How we deal with the weight of our own existence is what marks our lives differently.”

He articulates this so matter of fact, a statement that sends a real shiver through Isak’s spine: suffering by sheer existence sounds like resigning oneself to a realism that is too painful to swallow. How possibly can one bear it? But Isak can already understand, how important this realisation for Even was, and how it has marked him, shaped him into someone else, into an Even who responds - rather than reacts. Isak had spent months obsessing over Even, and he never would have considered this for a moment. It's the lack of sleep influencing him, Isak knows - but he’s grateful, suddenly so overwhelming emotional with gratitude that Even is a person who never fails to surprise him.

“Reminds me of your philosophy about being able to direct your own life. You can choose...what happens after life happens to you. It’s your life still, your movie.”

“That’s funny, I had forgotten I used to say that,” Even muses, and it clutches at Isak’s tender fucking constitution. “But I guess you’re right, in a simplifying way. And yet, sometimes life happens to you, and there is no ‘choosing’ how to react. Sometimes we just do the best we can.”

Even fixes Isak with a look he knows he’ll never forget today, tomorrow, or ever. It’s a look that tells Isak how much Even sees, no barriers or bullshit, straight into Isak’s own soul. And there’s no aversion, or apathy, or resignation there, despite all that has happened between them in the past. There’s only a raw, careful acceptance of who they could be now.

He says, “I am sorry about your mother, Isak. Marianne was truly a unique person, and she will be missed.”

The thing is, Isak believes him.  

 

-

 

[LØRDAG 19:40](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2nMUrSv4hE)

It is not until he returns to his Airbnb that he starts to remember: he forgot it was there at all. The last time he was here everything felt differently to how it does now. Yet, when he walks in, the fruit he left on the counter remain the same, the bed sheets still rumbled and untouched since he last crawled out of them.

They had spent the day talking and not sleeping. When they were together, this was something Even used to love to indulge in and Isak rarely awarded him. When they lived together, Isak never wanted to diverge from a routine he thought would be helpful for Even. He spent a lot of time in his own anxiety, too young to handle it.

Sometimes Isak would disappear into himself and end up disrupting any time spent together by his own retreat. He knows it's because he thought lack of sleep - or a night out drinking  - or particularly intense sex was the result of a mood swing, or worse, the beginning of an episode. He’d ruin it before he ever let himself have it, and he’d ruin it for Even too. Isak thought immediate destruction was better than the surprise: in the end, it hadn’t mattered. The damage was done.

But this morning wasn’t like that - instead, it felt like the most cathartic 16 hours Isak has spent in a long time - the irony is not lost on him that only Even has ever inspired this kind of exhausted elation in Isak; this genuine, open curiosity to life and all the potential it could offer.

They spent most of it on the wrapped up in blankets balcony, sharing stories, talking through some of the nuanced tidbits of their lives now; tiptoeing around the places in their past that hurt especially. At one point Even made breakfast, eggs with sour cream on top of black beans and tortilla, a recipe he learned in Spain. Isak had asked him, in teasing disbelief, where on earth Even had found black beans in Oslo - and Even had only winked in return, told him he had his ways.

They ate over the kitchen bar, talking in a low voices, giggling when they can. They talked about Isak’s mother, and Even sat through another stifled round of tears. That time, Isak did not apologise for it. Even never asked him to his room, perhaps knowing how Isak felt. He had an infuriating knack for knowing these kinds of things, sometimes without Isak even recognising he felt that way first. It used to be infuriating. Now it was less scary, but still very unsettling.

He finally turns on his phone after he plugs it in, only to have 15 unread messages. 6 missed calls.

The first five are from Eva:

EVA 04:58 / _Hiiiiiii Issy, takk! See you soon babe_

EVA 11:45 /  _Shite, what on earth did we do last night?_

EVA 12:03 /  _Fuck, Isakkkkk, I feel so terrible for just leaving you last night._

EVA 12:14 /  _Jonas is not pleased with me. Not pleased at all._

EVA 13:30 / _Please let me know you’re okay? Want to meet for a coffee? I’ll bu_ y

JONAS 13:38 /  _Hei bro, just checking up. Heard you went out with Eva?_

JONAS 13:41 /  _I was worried this may be a bad idea. How you holding up? Should I come by?_

JONAS 13:44 /  _Let me know if you need anything_

EVA 17:00 /  _Okay I totally understand if you’re upset, but please message me to say you’ve gotten home okay? I hope you’re just sleeping it off…_

JONAS 17:34 /  _I know you’re probably asleep, but you’ll need to eat something, and I just stopped by the kebab place by the apartment, so you’re definitely going to thank me._

JONAS 17:40 /  _Hi???? I’m here?_

JONAS 17:41 /  _I can’t tell if you’re deep asleep or not here at all_

JONAS 17:44 /  _Shite, I hope you aren’t somewhere in a ditch. Will you please let me know? If you’re angry at Eva, its fine. She shouldn’t have left you there._   _Just text me._

EVA 18:22 /  _Isak, Jonas said that when he went by you weren’t answering, and now I’m really worried sometime has happened to you. PLEASE let us know if you still have your phone._

EVA 19:02 /  _ISAK._

He feels terrible in a removed way, to make them worry, but even the idea of conjuring true guilt about it only furthers his exhaustion. He washes his face, brushes his teeth for the first time in two days, and pulls off his smoke-tainted clothes. His lungs feel like they’ve been wrung out and hung to dry on the line.

Til EVA, JONAS 20:01 /  _Hei, sorry, my phone was shut off. I’ll see you both tomorrow around 10, right? Service at 12._

EVA 20:02 /  _TAKK GUD_

EVA 20:02 / _Yes, we’ll see you there_

JONAS 20:05 /  _I’ll be there at 10, to pick you up. Glad you’re alive bro._

Isak understand how it looks: dead mother, showing up all mute and awkward, bender night that turns into a true disappearing act. He understands the worry. He could apologise, explain, and both make them feel better about him ghosting the entirety of the day, but it requires too much. They must understand, because after Jonas’ last text message, neither of them message him again that night.

Isak falls into a sleep too heavy for dreams, and prays for small mercies.

 

-

 

SØNDAG 11:07

Someone has ordered flowers for the service, and Isak wonders if it was him. He sits in a black suit that feels too tight in the elbows and thinks: this is real. This is happening.

Eva is sitting in the front seat of the Uber, her hair pulled back from her face, her expression caught between uncomfortable and bracing. Isak understands this feeling.

“The girls will meet us for the service; Eskild is coming along with Vilde and Noora. After we thought we could go back to his and Noora’s to have a small memorial, if you wanted. Just some drinks and a little food.”

They don’t speak about this morning, but Isak catches Eva and Jonas exchange several looks they think are private.

Isak can only nod. Jonas had given him a Xanax after he found Isak naked in the bathtub, shivering. Isak did not remember when he started the bath, or if he had gotten in while the water was warm or if it had always been cold; Jonas said he was having a panic attack, sitting in that water, freezing half to death, shivering and shaking all over the fucking place. He hadn't even thought to ask how he got in the apartment. Now he feels a sense of artificial calm, similar to having wool pulled over his head. He finds he does not mind.

“The only thing is,” Jonas asks, “Is if...do you know if your dad is coming?”

Ah. There it is: the answer to his question. Why was he in the bath? Because at 07:00 in the morning his father had finally returned his call, told him plainly,  _No, sorry, Isak, I missed my train from Trondheim, and now I am afraid I will not make it. I am very sorry for what has happened. Can we arrange soon to see each other? Jeg Elsker deg._

Like it was simply a lunch date to be rescheduled.

Isak wanted to say, the notice was over a week ago. Instead he was silent. Instead he said: “That is fine, I understand. I will call you back later.”

This is not what he felt. Like a tidal wave, his lungs collapsing, rocking back and forth inside his wretched body, possessed by a feeling he could not articulate or contain. He raked his nails down his skull, his neck, down his arms and torso. He took off all his clothes and stood, recklessly, on the balcony until he thought he could taste the impending snow in the air. Somewhere, a glass broke. He wondered if this is what Even felt like, free and terrible, outside the existing world in a universe only saturated with untouchable grief. Finally, frozen, he had sunken in the bath, for how long he didn’t know.

Then Jonas had found him, found the water tinged pink, pulled Isak up by his armpits like he was a child. Jonas cleaned the indents in his palms, cuts criss-crossing over his palms like half moon scars. There is a broken glass in the kitchen sink, covered in his blood. Jonas wrapped his hands to help prevent infection. Jonas helped him dress, forced him to eat, let him throw it up in the sink after.

Then the Uber was called, and now Isak tries not to pick at the bandages. He shakes his head no. No, he will not be in attendance. Another look between them.

Eva’s hand touches his knee, caresses him, smiles a soft sad smile that he rarely ever sees. Jonas pulls him close, holds him tightly, and Isak is sedated, unable to reciprocate, but grateful all the same. He closes his eyes, thinks, _this is all I have_ , and sinks into Jonas’ embrace.

 

-

[SØNDAG 12:30](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BYe-UfzgPk)

It is only after the pastor finishes his final sermon and they lower Isak’s mother into the ground does it start to snow. He looks around, tasting the area, feeling out the boundaries of his own grief, and how morbid it is to sink someone you love deep into the ground where they rest forever. Sleep is only the cousin of death, Isak ruminates. Death is the real deal.

The only comfort is that he is not alone; between Eva, Jonas and himself, they were able to muster a funeral that contained more than just a party of one. So his fear didn’t come true: so he wasn’t alone in saying goodbye. The girls stand around him various shades of black and dark red, Noora her hair more blonde than he remembers, her face a pale shadow without any red lipstick. Eskild holds her close, and they touch him like a brother, like an old friend, and Isak remembers many months spent at the Kollektivet; those memories arrive like a bitter taste in his mouth.

Madhi, Vilde and Magnus stand close, Chris not far behind. He feels like he hasn’t seen them in a thousand years; their faces older, less round, their haircuts different.

Then there is Sana, her face pinched but stoic, dressed in her usual black, for once blending into the rest of them. As they stood in a small half circle around the casket, holds Isak’s hand when they start to lower his mother into the plot, mindful of his bandages.  She throws in a bouquet of lavender and it lands neatly on top.

“She has been in my prayers all day,” she tells him, patting his hand and pressing the side of her body against his. All he does is sag against her, a pain blooming behind his temple, his skin frigid and dry when he tries to flex his fingers. “ _Mae Allah alan_.”

His mother had no siblings, and grew up without a father. Isak’s grandmother had passed away when he was a child. Aside from Jonas, he’s not sure anyone ever met his mother, at least more than once, and yet they all know Isak, and that is enough. It is going to have to be enough, because it is all Isak can offer her. He thinks of how small his mother must be in death, and wishes a life different from this. Another universe - any of them - where he is not left as the last tangible evidence that she existed at all.

She died alone, and without her son. Thick tears roll down his cheeks into the lapel of his shirt, and it chafes along his neck, salty and wet. The afternoon settles into a beautiful lilac, the snow filtering through the air like lofty feathers just sinking down from the sky at their leisure.

Walking back from Nordre Gravlund, he sees the steeples of the Sagene Church across the way, dusted now with snow. He pauses, looks to where Jonas is calling an Uber.

“I think I’m going to hang back for a bit,” he says, and Jonas fixes him with a look that wants to remind him of the state Isak was in this morning, but won’t say it out loud. “I promise, I will be fine. I’m going to keep my phone on. I’m not going to run off or ….hurt myself. I promise.”

“Don’t you want any company?” Jonas says, his hand lowering where he was holding his phone. “I can stay, or at least, wait for you.”

But Isak shakes his head. “No, go to Eskild’s. I will come, soon. I just want to have a moment to myself. I don't want to feel like you’re waiting for me.”

For a moment, Jonas stares at him, and Isak can almost feel the weight of him measuring the pros and cons of what he is proposing, trying to figure out if through this haze of white hot grief, if Isak will really join them at Eskild’s soon. And he can feel the moment Jonas relents, because they’ve been friends - best friends, since they were children, and he just knows.

Isak wants to say: thank you. Thank you for being there. Thank you for existing. I couldn’t have done this life without you.

Instead,  Jonas leaves, and Isak stays, in silence.

Then:

JONAS 14:23 /  _Call me if you need anything._

He walks up the steps of the church, and just breathes through it, tries to keep his mind in a place where he can see what is front of him. The red brick seems just as red as he last remembers. He walks through the middle of the walkway where the trees line either side of the road, studies the spherical stain glass windows in perfect rotational symmetry and wonders, how the hell did they do that, nearly two hundred years ago? Did they create a vision of pure beauty in the honor of the grace of God, knowing that in the future, people like Isak would merely be impressed by its impressive stature, and little else? He thinks not.

He doesn’t go inside; he’s not sure if he can. Now that Jonas has left, Isak feels stupid for wanting to stay, when he should have just gone with him to Eskild’s and Noora’s apartment near Homansbyen.

It's a feeling he will never forget, that even in the lapses, it will descend upon him again and again where he least expects it. The moment after his mother is buried, standing outside the Sagene church, shaking under the sheer weight of existing. To live is to suffer, he thinks. And to die to escape suffering forever. His shoes crunch on the fresh icicles and he thinks of play with his mother’s perfumes, how he would touch each one separately when she was out at the supermarket, before fastidiously returning them to their respective places. The clink-clink-clink sounds the glass would make when he’d move them against a tiny silver tray, open their glass lids. How he could never figure out how to spray them, until one time he did, and she came home to him doused in rose and vetiver.

On his twelfth birthday, she had made him a small yellow cake with vanilla frosting, wrote 12SAK in blue letters. His parents had stopped arguing just before they sang happy birthday, and their house was a stifled ceasefire. She had bent down next to him, her cheek against his cheek and told him, “make a wish, baby.”

Isak remembers wishing that they’d stop fighting, that an air of peace would fold over and engulf all three of them. Distinctly he remembers imaging a universe where his mother would stop barricading herself in her room, and his father wouldn’t wear that pinched look on his face, and no one would forget to ask Isak how his day was, or if he had enough clean laundry for school. He closed his eyes, pretended that he was in that universe, a universe where everything was beautiful and nothing hurt. He blew out his candles, blinked, and the world as he knew it returned to him.

A wish wasted.

He thinks of the following birthday, when Isak had forgotten to clean up his mess in the living room, and in a rage, his mother had locked Isak in his room. He had awoken on the 21 of June, thought: today could be a good day, only to stand up and find his door locked. He knew better than to slam his body against the wood (he tried before) or scream (no one was listening) or work himself up into an anxious fit (it was exhausting). Instead, he gingerly took himself back to his mattress, curled up underneath every duvet, and stayed as still as possible, like if he didn’t move eventually he would sink into the mattress, and there would be another world.

His father hadn’t made it home that night, but sometime in the evening, when his stomach was so empty he thought he might be sick, he heard the approach of her muttering, the turn of the lock, retreating steps. He had waited another twenty minutes (it could be a trap).

The birthday cake she had made that year sat out on the counter from the night before, pitiful in its abandonment. It tasted less sweet, considering he ate it alone on the kitchen counter with his fingers. He turned thirteen. He did not bother making a wish, because there was no candles; because they never came true.

He remembers being angry. Anger he knew. Anger he practiced, held it close, twisted it in his gut and kept a firm hold on it, because it was all he had after his family was in ruins. So he never did forgive his father for leaving, for forgetting so easily about him, for refusing to help Isak when he needed it. He tried not to be angry with her, for hurting him, for thinking he was her enemy when all he ever did was try to love her back. He was angry at himself, for never attempting to understand her illness, or writing her when he could have. He tried and failed to let go of this anger, but it clung stubbornly, his trusty anchor.

“Hey,” Isak turns around to be greeted by a windswept Even, standing there near statue of  _Ung Mann_. He’s doused in a healthy amount of snow flurries, his hair tousled and cheeks bitten raw. He feels Even’s eyes on him, drinking him in.

“I’m sorry I missed the service,” Even says, and he does truly sound sorry. “I tried to get here as a fast as my shift at the cafe ended.”

“That’s okay,” Isak nods. “Everyone has gone to Eskild’s actually, to eat and drink. But I….”

“Needed a moment?” he guesses.

Isak nods. Gestures to the church behind him. “This was her favorite place.”

“Well, it certainly is one of the most beautiful churches,” Even agrees easily. “Its funny, I always associate the Sagene Church with you, too.”

Isak knows what he’s referring to. The beginning of their relationship - the most real beginning they could claim: after his episode, after Sonja, after all of it - that night when Isak had gone to see his parents for the first time in forever at the Sagene church to hear  _O Helga Natt_ , and had ran out halfway to find Even at Nissen.

They had returned back to the Kollektivet that evening, and Even let Isak undress him, wrap him up in a shitty duvet, promised him all the things he thought he could do for them.

He had asked Even to stay. And Even had stayed. At the time, it felt momentous.

“Do you want to go in?” Even asks, after Isak says nothing for a moment.

He shakes his head no. They stand close to each other. Their breath create small plumes of opaque air, dissipating quicker than smoke.

Finally, Even tries again: “I wanted to pay my respects. But if you’d rather, I can come with you to Eskild’s. If you don’t want to be alone right now. Or if you do, I can also leave.”

Isak doesn’t know what he wants. “I don’t know, honestly.”

Then he heaves a laborious sigh. “Is it wrong that I don’t want to go be with them? I’m just going to sit there, you know. I don’t want to do that. To myself, or them.”

“Makes sense,” Even nods. “I - does it make it worse, to see me again?”

Isak can tell that it takes a toll to ask, that Even’s worried the answer will be an upsetting one, he has that nervous tilt to his tone again. Even knows how - or at least, knew - how difficult it was for Isak to be honest: it was one of the ways they suffered the most, because Isak could never just tell him  _no_  when he didn’t want something or  _yes_ when he did. And it wasn’t just Even, but everyone else, Isak couldn’t be honest with, either.

Isak can’t say how much he’s improved being honest, if he’s at all truthful with himself.

But if he’s going to try, he may as well try now, when he feels gutted and incapable of losing anymore than he has already today.

So he says, “I don’t think so. I think I  _think_ it should be, this....I thought I’d always be too terrified to see you again. But actually…”

Even waits for him to gather his thoughts. Patient in way he’s not known Even to be, before.

Isak grapples with his words. “But actually, I just feel. I don’t know. Jonas has been the best, you know, helping me when I’ve been in a state beside myself. And Eva, and my friends, too. They’re trying far more than I could ever ask of then. And I am just suffocating underneath all of it. I feel like despite everything, seeing you has been the only part of returning here that has made sense.”

“Right,” Even acquiesces. “I can’t say I’m happy you came back, considering how much pain it has caused you. But seeing you again, Isak...I just. I can’t explain it very well.”

Isak turns to face him, notices how the day starts to fold in on itself, turning in towards dusk, and the wind whips around them both, huddled close underneath the looming shadow of mother’s favorite church.

Maybe it's the bitten, plush quality to Even’s lips as he says Isak’s name, or the candid way they’ve been speaking to each other. But he feels brave. So he says, “Try.”

 

-

[SØNDAG 16:10](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKlBTmylvqY)

They could take the train. But instead they walk. After an hour of strolling, they stop for a bottle of wine, a dark red, something that won’t make them drunk, but will loosen the tension knotted from the day.

Til JONAS 17:13 /  _Hei, I ran into Even at the church. Going to be a while. Don’t wait for me._

JONAS 17:14 /  _??? what_

JONAS 17:14 /  _okay, if you’re sure. We’re still here if you want to come. Text me if you need anything_

Isak shuts off his phone and slides it into his pocket. The snow reflects into the sky, reducing it a milky gray, softening every edge in Oslo.

They pass a mirrored store front. Even takes a swig, passes the bottle to him. Both of them are sheathed in black slacks, stiff black wool coats, looking oddly older and more sophisticated than Isak has ever felt or ever wanted to feel. Neither of them spare another glance at their reflections.

“Never thought you’d live in Grünerløkka,” Isak mentions. Then he realises that isn’t quite true. “Well, actually, nowhere is more perfect. But I mean, I didn’t think I’d ever be walking with you, toward Grünerløkka, again.”

“Just proves you can never say never,” Even raises an eyebrow. He sighs, looks down at their feet shifting through slush. “Is that what you think, when you think of me?”

Isak can only shake his head at first. He tries to organise what he wants to say, because it all floods him at once. Finally, “No. To be honest that night never really crosses my mind. I’m not so sure there was one defining moment for us. And it would be impossible to reduce you to a single memory.”

What he wants to say, and cannot bring himself to admit: Before you there was no real me. Only a person pretending to be.

He swallows, sinking into the small silence between them. All he can hear is the sound of snow, and for a moment Isak feels nothing but his present tense, his breathing, the taste of red wine when he licks along his bottom lip.

“No, I agree. There was such an imprint of you that felt so tangible even after you left, like you never  _really_  left...but continued, somehow, to live on, in some…”

“Other universe?” Isak asks quietly, and then laughs to himself, a short, unfriendly laugh. “Did you ever think, why couldn’t we figure it out?”

“Yes,” Even nods. “I did, all the time, I obsessed over it. I didn’t know how to return to the person I was, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to be this new person - without you either. And on top of that, I didn’t want to stop thinking about you.”

At Even’s words, Isak feels a softness in him come into his bloodstream, a raw nerve exposed and left wanton, asking.

He is brave enough to ask: “Do you still?”

Even’s answer is immediate. “Yes.”

He can’t look at him, but he can’t stop himself, either. “Because you know it wasn’t love that was the problem?”

“Of course not,” Even laughs a little, taking the bottle neck and swigging it. “No, it was more, we were really young. And _really_ in love. It was a lot to handle.”

“‘A lot’ coming from you,” Isak teases, feeling the brightness, the tenderness, the insecurity. “What an understatement. Most of the time we were going at the speed of fucking light.”

“Well, it was a hell of a ride, no?” Isak turns to find Even grinning at him, part sheepish, part giddy. His cheeks are bitten pink again, his hair tousled from the wind, flecked with snowflakes. Isak knows if he were to step closer, he could find the snowflakes caught in his eyelashes, too.

They turn, crossing the bridge over the Akerselva, and Isak is reminded of that red morning, crushed like a blood orange spilling into the sky.

Even rolls a cigarette eventually, and Isak marvels that he is able to when it's this cold. His hands must be warm. Isak tries not to imagine what they’d feel like. Even lights it and asks, “So I’m assuming then, you still have your theory of multiple universes?”

Isak shrugs, “Yeah, of course. I can’t not. But I mean, I’m less fanatical than when I was. Looking back, it was kind of obvious how much it was a coping pattern.”

“Yeah,” Even nods in understanding: he too, is probably recounting the times Isak has spent the better part of the week unable to stop obsessing over. “I couldn’t really let it go, I guess. It only became tolerable after those initial few months because I held onto the idea that there were other Isak’s, other Even’s. I used to spin worlds where we could just be...”

Once, during a brief interlude of hypomania, Isak had returned home to find Even had typed up at least a twenty six different haiku's attempting to capture, perfectly how he felt about them. It was more often he’d edge toward a increased state of creativity, excitement, without lapsing into a full manic episode. In this particular instance, Isak doesn’t remember the circumstances, only that it was nearly summer, and they were in love.

Most of the poems were only fragments of what could be, before Even had lost the thread on one and started another. But one stood separate from the rest, stuck onto the wall, surrounded by the others.

_You are my final_

_Resting place. My Cathedral_

_Of light, salt and snow._

It was like Even to explore his obsession with their love as an outlet for his creative energy. Once, he’d stripped Isak naked and painted on him for hours, kissed every last colour as he decorated him. Once, in a real episode,  he’d spent nearly ten-and-two days painstakingly drawing their entire timeline in cartoon verse, down to the very dark underbelly of their coming together.

Once, he learned how to tell Isak I love you in six different languages, including Esperanto, which Isak was convinced was mostly made up, until Even reminded him that all language was made up. It sounded like  _Mi amas vin._ It sounded like a blessing, breaking in half.

So Even was right, just like Isak was right: love was never the problem. But love was not enough.

 

-

 

SØNDAG 19:03

At Even’s, they start another bottle of wine without hurry. Isak is not drunk, just supple and warm. Even cooks dinner, and for a brief moment Isak meets Mari, stumbling out of her room, clearly just blinking into awareness. Her long blonde hair is tied up in a knot on her head, little wisps falling around her face. Her eyes are glassy, like she hasn’t slept.

Even winces, cheerful, “Long night?”

“All-nighter to finish my part of our group project,” Mari rolls her eyes. “Hello, I’m Mari. Sorry, I wish I was more presentable, but uni has been overkill. And you must be - ?”

“Isak,” he introduces himself. She smiles, balancing a cup of coffee in one hand and a bowl of cereal in the other. “Nice to meet you.”

“You, too,” she returns kindly, but he did not miss the look she gave Even on her way back to her room. Isak decides he can ask later, if there is anything to ask at all.

They eat pumpkin soup with cheese in the living room, music on low, only the quiet clinking of spoons against their bowls. From his point of view, Isak can see the curve of Even’s jawbone, where it connected to the bottom of his ear. He could see a place where he missed a shave, just near his chin. His freckles were the same. But Even is not: he is older, grown into his body, into his face. His shoulders are broader than Isak remembers, even hidden underneath his gray sweater. He wonders if Even could feel his gaze, if he’s allowing him to look. He wonders if it means anything. Before he finishes that thought, he knows that it does.

It does mean something.

After, Even goes to roll a joint. He goes into his room and brings back a small tin filled with different papers, a grinder, a small glass jar of weed. He passes it to Isak to smell. Rolling joints had always been a methodical pleasure for Even, a practice he took pride in from start to finish. Isak leans back into the sofa, takes in the books on shelves opposite them, the span of the city from the balcony, the twinkling lights. They looked like little city fireflies, flickering in the snow.

“What cafe do you work at?” Isak asks, and to his mild surprise, Even grimaces.

“You’re going to hate me for this,” Even smiles, shaking his head as he licks up the seam of the joint. “But, about eight months ago, I was hired on at Tim Wendelboe.”

“No,” Isak nearly shouts, aghast. He sits up, feeling pearls of delight bubble up inside him. “Even. That is really terrible. You’ve really crossed over now, into a territory I cannot condone.”

“I am a trendy sell-out, it is true. But in the pretentious niche coffee world, it really is a great opportunity for a barista.”

“Sure, if you don’t mind being a complete ass in the meantime,” Isak mumbles. He rolls his eyes. “So, if I were to walk in there, demand a oat-milk-bullshit cappuccino or something, you’d make it for me, no problem.”

“I did not realise you were  _le-intolerant_ ,” Even teases, and rolls his eyes. “No, you, you I would refuse service completely. We’d ask you be removed, especially if you come in traipsing through in your air maxes and snapbacks.”

“I do not wear air maxes anymore,” Isak scoffs, “And so what, because I don’t look like I shop out of someone’s second hand donation closet, I am not good enough?”

“Second-hand donation is the new vintage,” Even laughs. “Sorry, babe.”

Isak only rolls his eyes, tries to hide his preen at the word  _babe_ , how it falls from Even’s mouth so naturally, how even couplets of banter seem to set his gut at ease, his body relaxing. He’s so fucking exhausted, he realises, and yet, he feels lit up underneath Even’s attention.

Even’s always had that effect on him, though. Like no one else could possibly exist outside of them.

“So what do you do, then?” Even asks. He clears off the trunk in front of them and opens it, pulling out a blanket for Isak, and one for himself. “Surely you work in Berlin?”

Isak nods. “Yeah, I work at Bard’s student library, cataloguing, but mostly minding students, stacking shelves.”

“Organising information,” Even nods like he can picture Isak doing exactly this. “ Telling people they need to be quiet. Sounds like something you would like. You’ve always been the biggest nerd I’ve ever known. A covert nerd, of course. Can’t let anyone know to which extent you love it.”

“My cover would be totally blown, you’re right,” Isak smiles, shaking his head under Even’s teasing. He knows his face is showing how much he is enjoying it, but he’s past the point of caring, now.

“And how is Bard?” Even asks when they finally settle out on the balcony. He perchs his long legs against the railing, and lights up. “I mean, how have you found it, really?”

“Really?” Isak asks. Even nods, yes, really. So Isak settles on truthful.

“It’s….look, I said, Berlin was really the city I could just be, you know? Whoever I wanted,” Isak says. “But, it’s more complicated than that. I mean, I thought if I  _wasn’t_ surrounded by everyone I knew, and haunted by all these ghosts, I could just - exist as I wanted. I could be - I don’t know. Happy-go-lucky. Free. Out.”

“Right,” Even’s face gives away nothing, impassive as he waits for Isak to hit the joint. “But?”

Isak blows out a toke, smoke filling his eyes and making them water for a moment. He passes it back. “But its not necessarily true. The truth is Bard has been amazing, classes and the access to all the knowledge I have there, and my English has just improved by like, 1000 percent. Because when I got there, I wasn’t able to be - who I wanted to be. I reverted to a version of myself that kept everything inside. And it’s lonely. I still don’t know how to connect with people very well. And I still keep waiting for people to not accept me, if I decide to show them who I really am.”

Even makes a soft noise in his throat, like a condolence. Isak feels the weight of his words sit between them. He laughs, a little sardonic. “I’ve never said that out loud before.”

“I can tell,” Even murmurs.

“Yeah, well,” Isak feels himself getting stoned, and his words looser in his mouth, easier to parse together and set them free. “You always saw me for who I was whether or not I wanted you to. And that was easier, obviously. Because there was no point in hiding.”

“Is it reckless, to talk like this?” Even asks then. “To talk so openly, with each other, given how things went last time?”

Isak shakes his head. “I have no idea. But I can’t stop.”

“No, me either,” Even agrees. He passes the joint back again. Blows a smoke ring, then smiles at Isak like the cheeky shit he’s always been. “And I don’t care if it’s bad - for me, at least. But I’m worried, that bringing all this shit up, when you’re here for your mother’s funeral, is completely inconsiderate of me. And selfish.”

“I don’t think it’s selfish. You’re not forcing anything on me. I came back here with you,” Isak points out. “You were always so worried about me. Which is funny, because I spent probably 90% of my time being worried about you.”

Even considers this, tilting his head side to side like he’s rolling his thoughts around in his brain. “You kept everything inside. I could never tell when you were truly hurting. And it made me so paranoid, because I thought that if I ever hurt you, you’d just let yourself be hurt, like you somehow deserved it.”

Isak hangs his head; he knows this to be true. He remembers their fights leading up to Berlin - Even frustrated over Isak’s inability to just tell him,  _tell me when I fuck up, Isak, for the love of God, so I can fix it_ . _So_  we _can fix it._

And then there were the more looming problems centering on Isak’s inability to be honest with himself. To be honest about who he was fully, to stop shying away when Even wanted to touch him in public, or around their parents, because he couldn’t commit to being who he was.

It came in waves: he was comfortable in some settings, around his friends (Jonas and the boys knew, and it was fine - Eva and her friends knew, and it didn’t matter,  so why was it such a fucking big deal for Isak?), or certain areas of Oslo, certain nights out.

It would come upon him like a shock: _that isn’t me. I’m not like that._  Isak would retreat into himself, so sharply sometimes it would give Even whiplash; shaking off his arm around his shoulder, turning his head away when he leaned in for a kiss. It was hurtful. It hurt Even, to be rejected like this, without warning or any specific reason.

“Hey,” Even’s hand touches his knee gently, a shock to his system. “I’m sorry, if I what I said was unkind. Come back to earth.”

Isak remembers a single devastating memory of Even saying something similar right before they had broken up:  _Come back to me, Isak. You’re in your head again, and I can’t reach you there. Come back, come back to me._

“No, it’s not what you said,” Isak says finally. If he’s going to be really honest, if this is what they’re doing - then fuck it. “No, I just. You’re right. You were right about me all along. I had this whole...scenario in my head. It doesn’t matter. I stayed away because I thought in Berlin I could figure it out. But then I didn’t. I was ashamed because everything you ever - gave me, I ended up just reverting back to the coward I used to be.”

He pauses. Then he says what has haunted him since he realised it, alone in a flat share in Berlin on a Tuesday evening. It had been raining. “When we were together, it was like I finally found my moment to be me. And that was exhausting, at times. But then when I was alone, I couldn’t figure how to just be out again - and that was worse.”

Even fixes him with a look, his hand rubbing over his mouth, and Isak feels the devastation as it hits, his honesty as it freezes him in place. A snide voice in his head that says:  _this is who you are, Isak. Throwing love away so you can keep hiding in yourself._

“But I don’t want to be that person anymore,” Isak continues. “I mean, fuck it. Everything in my life as I know it is not what I thought it would be. And I’m finally starting to realise that it’s not going to look how I thought I wanted it to look. It’s just going to be. But it’s going to be mine. That should be enough, right?”

A sharp sound, caught between a laugh and a choke. Isak shouldn’t be surprised to find it is coming from him.

Finally, Even speaks, producing his words carefully, slowly, as everything Isak has confessed sinks between them. “Did you feel this way since you’ve returned, or have you felt this way for a while?”

Isak isn’t sure where Even is coming from, but he considers the question all the same. Thinks back to the end of this term, when a summer school student named Joshua had asked him out for a date. Everything about the guy - American, obnoxious by default, noticeably flamboyant. Isak had stumbled over it, felt the first question arise in his head: Why do you think I look like a gay guy?

He remembers going home that night, getting so drunk he threw up beside his bed. He remembers staring at the sick the next morning, regretful, thinking: this is who you are. Is this who you want to be? Refusing to make eye contact with Joshua, or his gaggle of study abroad friends, even in the library, his head bowed low at the information desk. How he had grown so little? The shame was nearly overwhelming, but he felt helpless to stop it. An intense self-hatred had consumed him, burnt through him like a wildfire. He could taste smoke on his tongue for weeks after.

“Since August, maybe,” he answers finally. Tucks his legs up underneath his arms, wraps the blanket tighter around his shoulders. “I just hadn’t articulated it until now. But I’ve been feeling this way for a couple of months now. I was sick of it. I  _am_ sick of it.”

“Yeah,” Even nods. He rolls a cigarette. “But being with me didn’t make you more you. You did that all yourself, Isak. I realised, after you left, how much I pushed you always to figure out ‘the right way’ to accept yourself. And I don’t think it helped you at all.”

Isak shakes his head. “You just wanted me to be happy."

“I wanted you to be happy, but according to my terms. A happy I defined for you. And that was wrong,” Even points out. His voice sinks into a quiet hum, trailing off. He turns to Isak then, his blue eyes illuminated by the glittering street lights of the city below them. “Look, we may have fumbled and fucked everything up. Shit was complicated back then. But I was never confused about who  _you_ were. I knew you. I could see you.”

His heart plummets into his throat, and Isak is embarrassed to find a tear escapes the corner of his eye. “Fucking hell,” Isak nearly laughs, though it sounds like a choking gasp, like coming up for air for the first time - like realising there was a time he wasn’t breathing to begin with.

With a deep breath, he says what he knows Even has said to him a thousand times before. It was you. It is you. It’s _always_  been you. Instead he releases an exhale.

They sit together, processing what has just been said. Isak thinks of all the times he never had the nerve to tell Even exactly what was on his mind, and for what? It was stupid, he realises now. Even had always been there, despite in his own shit, despite when he was fucked up and emotional and figuring his own life out, he seemed to always understand who Isak really was, behind his discomfort, and he never questioned who Isak could be, who he already was.

“Fuck,” Isak says again. “What do we do now?”

“I have no idea,” Even says. “Nothing, at least, not right now. You’ve just buried your mother, Isak. I am so worried this is all too much.”

Right. He thinks of his mother again, dressed in white, and the snow fluttering today on the ground. Thinks of her small body wrapped up in lavender and sheathed in wood, buried in the earth. A crushing weight sits on Isak’s lungs, and for a moment it is unendurable. But like all painful things, it passes. He lets out all the air he was holding in his mouth, watches as it disappears in front of him.

“But,” Even says, and this time when he looks at Isak, his smile is nearly blinding in its earnest, in his adoration. “But, here you are. And here I am. I’m not saying I have any answers. But I’m willing, if you wanted, to figure it out with you.”

 

-

 

SØNDAG 22:17

It’s two more cigarettes  and three more glasses of wine before Even asks if he wants to see his room. Isak is nervous, and he doesn’t hide that fact from himself. He keeps staring at his own hands like he can’t figure out if they’re his or not. It feels like he’s shed off his old skin, like the funeral was days ago, instead of mere hours.  

When they re-enter the apartment, everything feels different to when they left it. Even throws the blankets down on the sofa, takes their abandoned bowls into the kitchen. There’s a little stain on his bottom lip from the red wine, and Isak thinks he should tell him, but can’t quite bring himself to.

There is something teasing, soft between them now, with everything they’ve said. Isak feels a little like he confessed his soul, and the vulnerability should be overwhelming, but with Even right in front of him, he can’t help but feel a lightness in his being; he won’t dare call it relief. Not yet, anyway.

Even leads him down a small hallway. Isak follows him, thinks back to the first time he had ever seen Even’s room when he was seventeen; how he had felt nervous without knowing why, without knowing why this boy inspired reactions in him that he couldn’t explain away. It had all felt new then, exciting, bright, nauseating.

And now.

Behind the plain white door reveals a small room dominated by a large window. Under the window is a double bed with a white duvet and a small mountain of pillows. On the left, another bookcase, and a small desk, where a pile of notebooks sat next to a macbook. On the right, a ficus tree, a few of its yellowed leaves on the floor.

A long string of fairy lights outline the four corners of the ceiling, bathing everything in a soft yellow light. It is the painting on the wall that brings Isak further into the room, hanging opposite the bed. Two people, of indeterminate genders, lie tucked in a bed facing each other. Isak studies their expressions, struck by the tenderness, the sheer intimacy. He walks up to it directly.

He feels Even stand behind him. “It’s called [Dans le Lit](https://www.wikiart.org/en/henri-de-toulouse-lautrec/in-bed-1893),” he says. “Have you seen it before?”

“No,” Isak shakes his head, and is embarrassed to feel his throat swell for a moment. “Who is it?”

“By Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec,” Even answers easily. “I saw it at the Musée d’Orsay, when I was in Paris. Of course, I became obsessed with it as soon as I saw it. And it turns out TouLouse-Lautrec had a very sad life, which made me drawn to him as an artist even more.”

“What happened to him?”

Even takes a pause. “Well, his health was a problem his entire life, and he was disfigured from a young age. Terribly short man, who often was uncomfortable with sex but obsessed with intimacy. He spent a lot of time in Montmartre around sex workers, who often became the subjects of his art. He died at 36 from alcoholism.”

Isak grimaces. “Christ.”

A short, heady laugh. “Yeah, I know. But I think it makes it more incredible, if you think about it. This man, who never felt like he was accepted, who never shared intimacy born out of love because of his deformities, was still able to understand and capture an essence that everyone can relate to once they see it. And if we can’t relate, exactly, I still can’t help but feel that there’s something about this painting that draws its viewer to it. So there’s something there, I think. And it reminds me that we can create beauty out of terrible darkness, and despair.”

“You would think that,” Isak turns around then. “It's just who you are.”

Even fixes him with a careful look, and then the corner of his mouth up turns into a small smile. “Thanks, I guess. He was also a staunch supporter of gay rights. He knew Oscar Wilde. So, you know, I’m all for that too.”

Isak smiles. “Okay, sure. But is that really how you found him, in the museum?”

Even rolls his eyes, then laughs with a shake of his head, like he should have expected Isak to see through him. “Fine. If you must know, he is also one of the characters in Moulin Rouge. But that is besides the point.”

“Of course, sure,” Isak teases back. He looks around again, thinks: this is Even. It’s not the room he thought it would be, but somehow it makes sense all the same. “I like this space.”

“Thank you,” Even says politely. “I’m sorry I have nowhere else to sit but my bed. You can sit, by the way. I won’t read it as any kind of suggestion.”

Isak bites back the comment that arises immediately: it would be fine if you did.

They’ve held this dance long enough, and Isak isn’t sure what lies on the other side: Even has been careful, so careful, not to overstep the boundaries they’ve kept. Isak knows he’s probably right to.

Once, Isak was convinced they were two souls abiding one body; like the Greeks used to say. When he left for Berlin, and there was only silence between them, he wondered if he could ever stomach that kind of pain again. Like splitting all your body parts down the middle, and tossing half of them onto a funeral pyre. So as much as he is wanton for Even, to touch again, to see if loving him is like muscle memory; loving him is built into who Isak is. Yet, there is also a great fear stirring inside of him, knowing that once he touches Even, kisses him, it cannot be undone. So much he has built up over these wounds, like scar tissue.

“Thanks,” is what he finally bites out. He blinks for a moment, lets his eyes fall shut and realises how exhausted he is.

“You must be beyond exhausted,” Even reads his mind. “Do you want to lie down, for a moment?”

Isak blinks again. “I don’t want to intrude. I can go back to my Airbnb now - ”

But Even cuts him off with a shake of his head. “Don’t worry about it. You’ve had an impossible day. Do you want to go? Be honest.”

Isak is honest. He shakes his head no.

“Okay,” Even says softly, “Then stay.”

Even takes his coat from him, and Isak shrugs off his shoes. He looks down at his slacks, considering as to whether or not he should take him off. A part of him knows a truly comfortable sleep means they need to be discarded. But another part of him recognises how new everything feels, how exposed he already is.

Even solves this for him by placing a pair of soft sweatpants in his hands.

“I’m going to go hang this up,” he says pointedly, and disappears into the living room. Isak takes the cue, shuffles out of his trousers, and is overwhelmed by how much everything smells like Even. It makes Isak feel small and newborn, unsure, but also unbothered by how he must look. Even returns, pulls back the duvet until Isak gets the hint and budges over.

“Just lie down for a moment,” Even says again, like he’s coaxing him. And he is, Isak supposes.

His voice has gone all soft and caring again, his eyes dark. He sits on the edge of bed, and Isak feels his body relax one bone at a time, sinking into the pillows.

Isak means to say something - anything - mostly, thank you, as the gratitude threatens to overwhelm him completely. But instead sleep takes over, and Isak cannot keep his eyes open. 

 

-

 

[MANDAG 00:32](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luHTVhECmWQ)

A dip in the mattress wakes Isak up, and he’s covered in a thin sheen of sweat. His heart is beating rapidly in his chest, and he wants to sit up, except that a hand comes out of the darkness and holds him still.

“Hey,” a whisper follows the hand. And then realisation sets in: Even. He relaxes. “You okay?”

Isak is still too sleep muddled to understand. “I don’t know. Am I?”

“I think you were having a nightmare,” Even says. Isak blinks his eyes open, takes in the sight before him. Even, freshly showered, without any hair gel, looking angelic in the soft yellow light. His cheek is pressed against the pillow and his hand, as he considers Isak with tenderness. “Do you remember?”

“No,” Isak says. Then he clears his throat, tries to recall it. “I don’t know.”

“Sleep is a cruel gift,” Even murmurs. They sit in a silence together, and Isak wonders if Even is remembering the times that Isak would wake up from nightmares when they lived together: always the same recurring panic which would convince him he was still living at home, locked inside his bedroom. On the other side of the door was his mother, trying to claw her way in. It makes him sick to his stomach just remembering it.

He feels Even’s hand before he sees it, grazing his cheek. Isak can’t help but lean into it, to feel his warm palm across his cheek, stirring further awake at his touch. Everything smells like him, in a heady, intoxicating, familiar mixture that Isak fears he may dread when he leaves it. He can’t think about leaving, not yet, when the sky is still dark, and Even is in front of him, sharing his bed, touching him in reverence, like he is anointing himself with Isak. Like Isak is something holy to be touched.

“I’m tired,” Isak confesses. Even palms his entire cheek then.

“I know,” he acknowledges. “You’re going to be okay.”

Isak squeezes his eyes shut. “I don’t know.”

“No, listen. Remember when I used to wake up in the middle of the night, freaking out and convinced I was going to ruin you and everything around us. And what did you used to say?”

Isak smiles, burrowing himself in memories where all that mattered was how much they loved each other, and Isak thought, surely,  _with all this love, we can withstand anything._

“Remember?” For a moment, Even is unsure that he does not. And Isak doesn’t want him to doubt for a moment that he could forget.

“I would say….” he sighs with residue sleepiness. “I would say, let's pretend we are the only ones who exist. Come into the place where no one can find us.”

“That’s not the whole thing, come on, think back, Isak,” Even teases. He rubs his thumb over his eyelid and Isak smiles into his hand. Even pulls the duvet over their heads and together they breathe in the darkness, the closeness.

“Okay,  _okay_. I would say, let's pretend we are the only ones who exist. Let’s go into a place where no one can find us,” his voice drops to a soft murmur. “And then I would ask you, have you found that place yet? I’m there too. And I’m waving at you, to join me.”

“Have you found that place, Isak?” Even echoes him. “I’m already there, holding your cheek. We’re in a place where everything is hidden, where no one can find us. If you are, then close your eyes, and fall back into sleep again.”

“Okay,” Isak nods. He feels a tear slip between his eyelid, and it runs down the side of his nose into the pillow. The second one Even catches with his thumb, and with a muddled gaze, Isak watches with distant curiosity as he brings it to his mouth. Completing his holy prayer.

After that, there is only darkness, and finally, in a hidden place, sleep.

-

 


	3. Part III

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter does contain one off-screen depiction of child abuse.

-

 

TIRSDAG 12:55

Someone is knocking on Isak’s door and it disturbs him from sleep. He spent most of yesterday sleeping, the week totalling its debts and taking its toll on his body, limb locked as soon as he hit the mattress. His brain is likewise taking a break; he cannot think of another way to see it. Aside from a brief interlude this morning around 2 am, he hasn’t woken up except to piss.

He knows what he’s doing, but he doesn’t care. Now that the funeral is over, he can only process what has happened in partial mouthfuls; digest it slowly, and try not to succumb to the inner turmoil which threatens to consume him entirely. In his waking hours, it feels almost too powerful.

Jonas looks  windswept when Isak opens the door, and truthfully, a little irate. Isak feels the stirring of guilt at his behaviour, and slinks back to let him in.

But Jonas does not say anything snappy, or flippant; perhaps it is a testament to how truly terrible Isak can only assume he must look right now, or perhaps Jonas isn’t actually irritated with him.

“Hey,” Jonas says, shrugging out of his jacket. “I’m sorry if I’ve woke you, but you haven’t answered your phone in two days and I thought it would be best if I came to see how you were doing.”

“Just sleeping a lot,” Isak says, and thinks: yeah, he’s irritated. But Jonas is a better person than Isak will credit him for, because while he may be annoyed that Isak hasn’t been answering, he seems to at least refraining from having a go at him from the start.

“Right,” Jonas says, like he’s not sure if he should believe it or not. Then he goes to the kitchen and boils the kettle: everyone seems to think Isak needs to drink tea a lot, like tea is a natural remedy for grief. And maybe it is. Isak sits down on the end of the bed, finding his tobacco underneath it. He searches his jacket for filters.

“Have you eaten?” Jonas asks, and then without waiting for him to answer, starts to rummage through a bag that he brought in with him. Inside is an assortment of plastic containers filled with food. “Well, I’m going to heat this up for you.”

“I’m not so hungry,” Isak says, but Jonas acts as if he hasn’t said anything.

Fair enough.

He sits on the ledge between his room and the balcony and smokes, his knees tucked up to his chest. He finds he does not mind how cold the air is, how it hits chest and makes his lungs ache. Jonas pulls something out of the microwave and brings it over to the desk, where he sets it down and waits expectantly for Isak to finish his cigarette.

Seeing Jonas in this role of paternal care, even though it is edging on Isak’s rather short, sleep muddled temper, still fills his gut with warmth. When they were in school, Jonas never let on how much he noticed, but _still,_ he noticed: when he didn’t have any clean clothes for school, Jonas and his sister taught him how to do laundry. When Isak knew there wasn’t likely to be any food at home for him, Jonas invited him over for dinner with his family. And when Isak would wake up in panic, Jonas wouldn’t ask for explanations. He would tell Isak stories instead, to soothe him back to sleep.

So Isak puts up no fight, no cruel elegy on how he doesn’t need Jonas to check up on him, and make sure he eats: it is not true, and it is not needed. His anger is misplaced. He sits and scarfs it down, and lets Jonas watch him from the bed.

“This is good,” he says after he drains the bowl of a dark beef soup. “Did your mother make it?”

“No,” Jonas shakes his head. “Noora, actually. Most of this is leftover from Sunday.”

He side eyes Isak for a moment, clearly looking for the best way to piece together his sentence. “We missed you there, by the way. Everyone just wanted to be there for you. How was it, seeing Even?”

Isak pauses. He considers this question, wonders if there is a fight rearing up behind it. He’s never been sure how much blame his friends allocated to his break up with Even to him leaving Oslo, partly because Isak has never bothered to explain it. He could never bring himself to, those first few months, to say Even’s name at all.

“It was...I had already seen him, on Friday, when I was out with Eva,” Isak explains. “We ended up talking all night. That’s why you couldn’t reach me. I had turned my phone off.”

Jonas nods. Isak picks at a stray thread on his sweatpants.

“We...he just, was there, at this club. And we got to talking. On Sunday he had also wanted to attend the service, but his shift went past what he expected and he was just arriving at the Sagene when I was there,” Isak shrugs his shoulders, gestures to execute his point. “It was completely random.”

“Okay,” Jonas nods. “But nothing with you and Even has ever been random.”

Isak sighs, feels bone-heavy and exhausted from merely sitting up. “Nothing has happened. We’ve just been talking. I don’t think anything is going to happen. Or I don’t know. My head is all fucked up.”

“Exactly,” Jonas says, and Isak thinks: ah, here it is. His point all along.

“I know what you must think,” he narrows his eyes. “It’s not like I’m out of my mind, and even if I was. It wouldn’t matter, really. Even isn’t manipulating me, or trying to suck me into some shit. That’s not who he is.”

Jonas only shakes his head, but Isak can feel the irritation as it builds up in. “Look, I know you two - have your history and so on. That’s not what this is about. And you’re right, I know Even isn’t like that. I just think, like, you’re going to end up regretting this. And if it all goes to shit, it’ll be worse, and then I’ll never end up seeing you again.”

“For fuck’s sake,” Isak snaps. “What do you know about this? Nothing. I’m able to make my own decisions without everyone involved, and Even - ”

“You weren’t there,” Jonas interrupts him. His voice curls around the edges, harsh and impatient. “You weren’t there, the last time.”

Isak feels his heart sink into his chest, swollen and itching, like a bad case of heartburn. He cannot swallow for a moment, and he looks out over the city through the balcony doors. He doesn’t know if he can look at Jonas, when he is saying this.

“Look,” Jonas sighs, his anger dissipating into exasperation. “I’m not - I’m not close with Even or anything. Like, you are my best friend forever, man. But I know that when you went to Bard and Even was here - it wasn’t great, for him. And I know it wasn’t great for you.”

“Did you, though?” Isak asks coolly, and for a moment Jonas looks downright offended. Then he swallows it, and shakes his head.

“From what you allowed me to see,” he raises one eyebrow. “Which admittedly wasn’t much. I’m sorry if I am being a dick right now, but I’m just trying to make you understand how you literally left everything here like it was poison. Like we weren’t good enough for you. And now - and now, with your mother gone, you’re gone too, and I can’t even reach you, and you’re talking to Even, and I don’t know what the fuck is going on. But I just feel like it’s a sliding scale into disaster.”

Jonas sighs like he may be breaking in half. His whole body shrinks with it. “I don’t know. I’m sorry. I know this is the worst time to talk about this. I’m sorry.”

Isak hangs his head for a moment, feeling tears well up in his throat, his mouth flooded with salt. “No,” he croaks, “I deserve that. I know I have been the worst friend.”

A pause. “Well, you certainly weren’t the worst. But sometimes pretty shit, yeah.”

Isak wraps his arm around one leg and presses his nose into the top of his knee. “I thought I had myself all figured out by our third year at Nissen. Remember? Everything felt so...free. Even when it wasn’t. And then when Even and I broke up before I left, the person I thought I was felt completely unreachable, because everything reminded me of him.”

Jonas does not say anything to this. Isak collects his thoughts. “I just did what I always did, which was to run away. And I shouldn’t have, I shouldn’t have done that. Least of all to you.”

The sorrow hangs between them. Isak knows it’s a stalemate, tonight, at least.

“It’s okay, Isak,” Jonas mumbles. “Like I said, this is the worst time to dig through this shit. And it can wait, it can wait. I’m so sorry about your mother, man. I can’t even imagine how this must feel.”

“Well,” Isak releases a short sound of contempt. “It feels like the world is going to open up beneath me, and swallow me whole. And I can’t tell if I want that, or if I fear it more than anything. Because now it feels very real. Death, I mean.”

Isak goes to the toilet, washes his face, looks at the bathtub, wonders if Jonas rinsed his blood from the sides of the porcelain after he pulled Isak out. Thinks: we don’t deserve this suffering, but such is life. So we must endure. So we must endure what is unendurable, and find beauty in between.

When he comes out, Jonas is flipping through the options of the television. He’s lying against the headboard with his feet crossed at the ankle, and he looks so natural here, so much part of the scenery that Isak wonders how he could have gone two years without his best friend. The guilt assaults him for a moment, and then he breathes through it.

“I’m not going to disappear, anymore. Next summer, I’ll come back, probably for good. And you have to visit me in Berlin before that,” he says. “I’ll show you only the best time.”

Jonas looks up at him and nods. “Good. You know they have a Showtime subscription? I’ve been dying to watch the newest season of Twin Peaks.”

“Fuck, I forgot how much you love David Lynch,” Isak teases, but he crawls into the bed next to Jonas, and doesn’t mind when their shoulders brush next to each other. “Yeah, okay, bring it on.”

“He directed all the episodes this time,” Jonas presses play on the first one, “I can’t imagine how absurd it is going to be, but I feel like it might be just what we need.”

 

-

 

[ONSDAG 01:01](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pyy75xnVryg)

Jonas snores softly beside him, and Isak thought, in his haze of sleep, to roll closer to him in order to soak up some of the heat he was emitting. A chill grazes his skin where it lay exposed.

He doesn’t do that, though. Instead he finds a sweater on the floor next to the bed and slips it on. He sits in the silence, his head rolling around until his neck cracks again, and again. Thinks: my god these bones are tired. Thinks: will this ever end?

He knows why he woke up, though. Instead of rolling a cigarette, he takes out the weed Jonas had left on the table. After four episodes of Twin Peaks had it occurred to them how much better it could get still if they were stoned. For the longest time, he wouldn’t smoke when he was in Berlin because it reminded him of Even. More so the act of rolling a joint, even one hastily assembled and with half the technical finesse, reminds him of Even.

Still? A voice inside his head asks. Then another answers: Still.

In the tender silence, Isak allows himself to think of Even and him. For the first time as long as he remembers, he welcomes the unpleasantness which comes with. Thinks: I will not be afraid anymore. Thinks: We have always been under the same moon, the same stars.

Thinks: enough is enough.

Isak remembers when they moved in together when he was 17, on the cusp of what he thought would be manhood. Or life itself, he didn’t know. He remembers decorating their future with silly anecdotes about how nothing would be perfect, but it would be theirs, and therefore they could withstand anything life threw at them.

That apartment is a place where he never visits in his head, because it represents to him all that he hoped for and none of which he knew, not yet. It was first time Isak was able to lay claim to anything: their flat, their own buzzer, their hallway, with the shoes lined up. Their bed, and the sheets they should have changed more often. The dishes in the sink, washed whenever they wanted, without having to be asked. And no one ever screaming at him, or trying to lock him in his room, or the dread settling in his stomach because he didn’t know what state the apartment would be in when he got home from school. He thought he knew now what his life could be.

But still, he knew very little.

What it was really like, to try and figure himself out, and figure Even out alongside him. What it was really like, to wake up everyday in the face of life, looming and challenging and relentless, and try to put Even to bed on his bad days. Or, on his especially bad days, pry him out of bed. What it was really like to wake up in the face of depression, and keep on loving anyway, no matter how alone Isak felt.

But it was unfair to assume it was Even’s disorder that exhausted their relationship, and Isak doesn’t, because it wasn’t true. The terrible truth of it lies heavy in his heart: they failed because they failed. Love became second, or third, to the miscommunication, or frustrations, or misunderstandings. They were on two different tracks, wanting different things for the first time since they found each other. Isak is no saint, never mind what his mother sometimes saw. A lot of the time he was angry, at the world, at his parents, at himself most of all. And Even could not love enough for the both of them; or always be so out and proud and comfortable as to make Isak more at ease, especially during times when he was so clearly wasn’t comfortable with anything, let alone them.

They broke up because sometimes people break up. Because sometimes they can’t always save it. Isak hates that this is true for them. They deserved a soft epilogue, after all.

Isak thought that if they could leave for Berlin, things would improve. He would be happy with himself there, with Even by his side, and they could start a new; leave behind old arguments, old fears, and grow again. He could not see anything aside from leaving, so much so that when Even told him he wasn’t sure he could go just yet, his entire world felt like had shifted, and Isak threw his hands up, and said the words he never wanted to say: I cannot do this anymore.

So he broke them, and in the process, broke himself. Those first months in Berlin after he ran away from Even and everyone he knew was like shedding his old skin; painful, isolating, costly. He lost 8 kilos, starting smoking incessantly, and just barely made it through his first term. And then somehow, like a tree shaking off its decay leaf by leaf, he started to rise from the dirt. He thought he could survive the way he was in Berlin: half a person, half the person he used to be when he was with Even. It was his own fault, really. Any part of himself that he associated with Even - and this was unfortunately, many parts of himself that he liked - he diminished and refused. Turns out there wasn’t much left to salvage, and he wandered around, hollowed out.

It wasn’t as if he was the same closeted fifteen year old - this was Berlin, after all, and many of the clubs he went to were gay clubs, because they had the best music, the best scenes. And he did take men home - never the same guy, but it wasn’t being truthful, he knew. He didn’t date. He didn’t go to Pride. He didn't talk about it, admit it out loud, or even to himself. His roommates wondered and were met with silence, a shrug, non-committal noises.

Gone was the boy who wore flowers in his hair to match the bruises on his face. Gone was the boy who told people, proudly, that Even was his boyfriend, even when inside his stomach was flipping. Isak would have mourned the loss, if he had let himself acknowledge it at all. All those things Isak couldn’t bring himself to say: all those times he just wanted to peel out of his skin and into another, to be anyone else.

Once, a girl at an after party had looked him in the eye and told him: you are a walking tragedy. It had been six in the morning, and Isak had just done another line of ketamine with her. Every time she touched him he had found a way to evade it leading somewhere else, and finally she had understood. Her eyes had changed then, the way sometimes they do when someone catches on to all the things Isak doesn’t want to say.

He was not a tragedy, strung up underneath the morning stars, with a beautiful girl who wants to touch him. He was not. He had brought this on himself; no one had caused him any anguish that wasn’t deserved. So why did he walk around with this shadow, forever looming? Why would his wounds never fully close?

Isak knows the answer, remembers the months it took to reach his own conclusions.

Loving Even was a feeling similar to staring directly at the sun. Plainly speaking, it hurt at first. He had to blink against his brightness, his edges.  And so he blinked away, against the first fluttering of pain, because proving that Even was real, he was there, was always more important.

Allowing Even to love him was a crash course in learning how to love himself. Isak had never thought he was particularly lovable: his parents were often indecisive about it. But Even told Isak that he hung the moon, that he was made out of light, and like a star, always guided Even back to where he knew he wanted to be. Even would tell him: you are my true north. You are the lighthouse of my universe. You illuminate. You make everything more. And Isak would fumble, and blush, and perhaps fail to return with anything even remotely beautiful, but it wouldn’t matter to Even, because Even was in love with him. And it seemed as simple as that. Isak was enough.

For Even saw all that was hidden inside Isak, and without flinching, scooped up handfuls of  dark matter so as to make room for himself. Shifted around those sad childhood stories and found ways to make Isak understand that he wasn’t tainted; that it wasn’t his fault; that he didn’t have to walk around the world thinking that he was brought into this earth damaged. Reminded Isak: it’s fine if you are lost in your thoughts, but when you’re ready, you can always come back. You can always come back to me.

The truth of it was, there were moments that Isak had experienced with Even that were undefinable, that he was unable to name sheer depth of their existence and how he was consumed entirely. Instead, he merely understood those feelings to _be_ Even, and ever since, the fear of someone else giving him that feeling kept him from every opening his mouth again. Why go down that road again, he would tell himself. We all know where it leads.

He knows he should have let it go a long time ago: it has been two years. But Even was more than his first love, more than his coming out. To be with Even was to finally have the courage to be himself, and troubling as it is, Isak never quite figured out who he was without Even. To be with Even was to take a deep breath in the face of the fight and marvel at how beautiful it is to bleed. It was to accept that loving someone meant giving away a part of yourself and trusting them to keep it safe. And it was to also accept that when things fall apart, it doesn’t mean that all the good things you had together disappear. Isak thinks he’ll carry around pieces of Even with him, forever.

“Tell me again,” Isak would whisper to Even when they sat together on their windowsill, sharing a joint before bed.

“I’ve told you a thousand times,” Even always teased, but Isak would allow himself to be relentless about this and only this. It was indulgent. Even never minded, not really. He would sigh, and then with a smile that caressed Isak’s very soul, would say: “I walked into Nissen on the first day, and from the very second in the courtyard I spotted you, I couldn’t look away. It was like you had this gravitational pull. I felt everything stop at that exact moment. It wasn’t so much as ‘love at first sight.’ No, that’d be too cliche.”

Even would always take the joint back, kill it, and blow smoke tendrils out into the night. And in their private slice of forever, Isak would rub his nose into Even’s neck.

“And?”

“And? And so,” Even would chuckle. “You didn’t notice me at first, I know this. Not until later. But when we first locked eyes, it was like something inside of me clicked into place. Like, ‘my god, is this where you’ve you been all this time?’”

-

ONSDAG 15:35

Isak is sitting in Cafe Sør with a peppermint tea. He’s waiting for Sana, because she had called him four times yesterday, and unlike Jonas, he was worried that she may start to instigate real terror if he didn’t return her message, at least.

He is starting to feel less exhausted, but it is only because he keeps thoughts of his mother distant from him again. He tries not to think about her in the ground. Even after the body starts to decompose, human fingernails and hair will continue to grow for a while.

When Sana finally arrives, Isak misses her completely because he kept looking for her likely black hijab and attire. Instead, when she comes up beside him and sits across the table, he finds she is adorned in a tangerine colour that stands out against the rest of the cafe, the dreary gray outside, the threat of rain hanging low over them. It may snow again.

“Halla,” she says as she sits. She pretends to look at the menu for a moment, but her eyes sit over the top of it and zero in on him. Sana is just as striking as Isak remembers. She had the same effect as something beautiful and annihilating. You couldn’t just look away when she decided to really look at you first. Isak had always felt annoyed by this when he was in high school, like who even was this girl?

“Halla,” he nods. He tries to remember the last time they were alone, thinks back to their third year of Nissen when she’d come over to study and tease Isak for never paying enough attention to his studies. It seems long enough ago, but it isn’t really.

At the same time, they both ask: how are you? Neither of them laugh, but both share a nervous, uneasy smile.

Then Sana says, “I thought it was time to check in with my ‘best bud.’” She punctuates _best bud_ with a affected accent, a teasing edge to her voice to mask any awkwardness. Sana never liked being emotional with other people, and that was something he had in common with her. “So, what’s next. What are you going to do now?”

Isak pauses. It was the first time someone had asked him about the future since he’d made his dramatic re-entrance back into Oslo; before, things had been so focused on what had been already done: the initial disappearance, and then the distance, of Isak remaining in Berlin.

“Truthfully,” Isak hums, with a shrug, “I have no idea. I’m leaving Friday. I guess on Monday I’ll start class again.”

“And how are classes? Still shit at biology?” Sana smirks. A waitress comes to take her order: she asks for an Assam and a Kringla. With a sideways glance at Isak, she makes it two.  

“Sorry, did you mean, still better than you? Then the answer is yes,” the banter arrives like returning to a place he’d forgotten existed. He knows every line without having to think about it first. His mouth remembers for him.

“Right, because I was the one who finished with a 5, and you with a 6,” Sana returns, easy, and then she pretends to think for a moment, a finger on her chin. “Oh, right, that was me.”

“Bard is actually good,” Isak answers her, serious now. He grins down at his tea. “I’m just starting the second half of my second year. And for the record, I am studying politics and social thought. Not science.”

“Ooh,” Sana chuckles. “How trendy. And how much longer do you have?”

“Well,” Isak thinks for a moment. “I have another 3 semesters to go. I take one this summer, then fall, then spring again. If I wanted to study abroad, then it would be 4 semesters. But the option is New York, and I don’t….”

“What, America not for you? How come! With all the political excitement there?” Sana is all but interrogating him, but then she laughs, slow and easy. “No, no, I think you may be on to something. Perhaps wait another few years, you know. See who’s in office then.”

Isak feels himself laugh for the first time in two weeks, and it feels good. It feels really good, like a bubble of emotional welling up inside of him and threatening to spill over. He cannot help but grin at her. “Okay, okay, enough about me. I know we really want to talk about you. So?”

“So? So. I’m at OsloMet, studying medicine, like I always said I would do,” Sana folds her arms in front of her tea, tiny tendrils of steam rising up in front of her face and then disappearing. “Nothing too exciting, except the other day I was able to dissect a pig, and the girl I was partnered with passed out.” Sana rolls her eyes. “Amateur.”

“Lovely,” Isak frowns. “Seems like you’re really in your element, then.”

As they talk, the lights dim in the cafe, and at some point, a trio of jazz musicians start to play. Isak wonders what the time is, but finds he can’t be bothered to check. Outside, it is dark. In Oslo in Winter that could mean anything.

Eventually, he can’t help but ask her what he’s always been curious about. “Are you seeing anyone?”

“Why, are you interested? I hate to tell you that you aren’t exactly my type,” Sana deflects, and Isak rolls his eyes. Then she lets her facade drop for a moment, and looks at him through her lashes. “I actually have been dating someone, for a couple of months.”

“Oh?” Isak raises his eyebrows, and resists the urge to tease. “Anyone I’d know? Unlikely, I guess.”

Sana’s mouth curls into a self indulgent smile, but even then she fights it back into a small grimace. “No, you do. Yousef and I have been seeing each other.”

Something twists inside of Isak then. Surprise? Lightness of being? How else could he articulate it, besides resorting to blaming butterflies? “Oh, is that so? How did this happen?”

“It just...was the right time, finally,” Sana admits. Her voice sounds different when it isn’t decorated with barbed wire. She still sounds wilful; Isak doesn’t think Sana has ever sounded vulnerable, least of all to someone like him, never mind the countless times he’s insisted on their friendship while they were at Nissen. There was just something about her.

“How did you know it was the right time? What has changed?”

Sana considers this. “I’m not sure. I think...I don’t know. I mean, Yousef still doesn’t want to practice Islam, not like I do, anyway. And I’m in class a lot, or if not, the labs, and we don’t always get to see each other. My parents are worried it’s not a good fit, because they want to find someone in line with their values.”

Isak frowns. “I didn’t realise Yousef wasn’t Muslim.”

“No,” Sana sighs, “Many people don’t realise that. They just assume. We differ on some things, but aside from the specific formalities, he is one of the most faith-driven people I know. Perhaps almost morally superior than I, which of course, you can never tell him.”

“But then, what are you going to do? If you want to stay together, will this eventually lead to problems?”

“Isak,” Sana says his name around a smile. “You sound like me, honestly, worrying too much about it. That’s what I’ve realised. Sometimes we must comprise on what we think is right for us, and take a chance to see if it’s really true. To be honest, I thought you’d understand, given all the compromises you’ve made yourself.”

He bristles at this. Understand what? How he threw everything away, how he ran away? How now, he only returns, because his mother has died, and he, the coward he’s always been, can only face her in death - ? “What do you mean?”

“Well,” Sana looks at him like _of course_ she has to explain herself, and he should really keep up. “Let me draw the parallel this way. Sometimes the person we think we should be is not actually the person we are. And taking down some of those boundaries allows us to really see what we want, and who makes us happy. Do you understand now?”

“I understand,” Isak nods, because he does. “As soon as I let go of thinking I wasn’t gay, I was able to be with Even, and thus… be around myself.”

It’s the first time in maybe a year that he’s allowed himself this: a small admission. Gay. And it is tiny, he thinks, especially when Sana already knows Isak, and Even, and _IsakandEven_ , so it’s not like any of this is new to her. But the words had just slipped out, naturally, and no bones have broken, no teeth have fallen out of his mouth, the world hasn’t been set on fire. She looks at him with the same intensity as before. The earth keeps rotating around the sun.

“Yes,” Sana folds her arms together. “Yes. And it’s not a perfect most of the time. But he’s worth it. And for the first time in a long time I let go of the anger, and just let him in for a second. And once I did that, I realise I didn’t want him to leave. So we’re going to figure it out.”

“Man, he must be pretty fearless, to take you head on,” Isak teases her, and their moment loosens then, when Sana laughs. She is beautiful in tangerine, Isak thinks to himself. He’s not sure he’s ever seen her wear colour aside from that one Eid she invited him to, but it suits her. In the dim cafe lighting, Isak thinks they must look like two people who are figuring it out, this life thing. And that will have to enough.

“You should take a note out of your own book. And I’m not giving you credit, so don’t let that head become any more inflated than it is already. What I’m trying to say is this: sometimes the life we want is different than the life that is expected of us. And what is expected isn’t always the better option,” Sana drains her tea, which must be cold by now, but she doesn’t flinch. She sets the cup down with an air of finality.

“More importantly, choosing to be different is also choosing to be brave,” Sana tells him, and it isn’t until much later, when Isak is back to lying on his bed at the airbnb, does he understand what she is trying to tell him.

-

TORSDAG 05:30

He shouldn’t be awake right now, he knows. Jonas is asleep on the bed, the Twin Peaks menu music loop playing quietly in the background. The morning feels like it will never arrive, but Isak knows that it will, and then he’ll have to face a brand new obstacle: leaving.

And how, exactly will he leave? It feels like a year has passed since he flew in to Oslo’s airport with just a rucksack and the hospital’s address on it. Of course, at the same time, it feels like no time has passed at all. Isak feels like he’s been submerged in cathatris: he is a pendulum swinging from emotion to emotion, sometimes so quickly he would become short of breath; stop in the middle of the street, and remind himself: You are in Oslo. Your mother has passed away. And you are here, you are here, to say goodbye.

Then, there’s the other part of this story, the part he is so terrified to touch. There’s Even. There’s Even who, at 22, is nearly devastating in his beauty. His limbs all grown out, joints less gangly. His temperament smoothing out into an even lull, like the tide pulling in again and again. His skin pale and freckled like Isak remembers. His smell. His smell when he enveloped Isak into his bed, and whisked them away to the place they used to go together, when the world became too much. It was a sanctuary Isak would never have let himself dream of, and yet Even had merely opened his door and let him in, like it was so easy.

He knows it isn’t. Knows, when he leaves, how much it may cost them. He used to tell Even: we take it minute by minute. Or hour by hour. Isak is terrified of the hours still, the ones that sit around him in a rented room in Oslo, when he’s thinking about the boy who broke his heart into a million pieces. Then there are still the hours after that, too.

The piles of his clothes is small. He takes the time to roll them up and shoves them in his bag, for lack of anything to do. Isak is tired of sleeping, and he is tired of grief. He is tired of running from the part of himself that refuses to leave. He is tired of being fearful, and he knows that beating back against it will require energy. It will exhaust him again, this great fight. He cannot look back now. This will be his life now. This will be his life until the fear no longer wins.

Everything fits in the rucksack. He goes to the desk where his mother’s photos lie. There’s one where she’s holding him, just twenty-six, fresh faced with her entire life ahead of her. How could she have known they were going to end up like this? He knows she would have made different choices if she could do it again. He looks at his face when he was a child, and pities him a little. Cherub cheeks, bright eyes full of light, little blond curls. Thinks: you spent so much time trying to make yourself invisible. Thinks: you spent so much time worrying you weren’t enough.

Thinks: You are enough.

Under the stack of photos, are the newspaper clippings, the photo of the three of them at Isak’s graduation. And underneath that, are the postcards.

Isak does not turn them over. The temple in the mountains; the museum in Paris. He thinks he always must have known deep down, when he took the letter on the wall, but even now, he can’t bring himself to admit what this means. The grief has already captured him as his prisoner. And this act of the altruism, of love, is something Isak is not strong enough to face just yet. He will read them, but not now.

In time, Even will understand why he waited. Isak smiles to himself, fingering the edge of the one of the cards, and thinks, Even probably already understands. He shuffles them together neatly, in a small row, tucks them between the photos, and the journals his mother kept. The fit perfectly in his bag, like somehow he knew there would be something to take back with him.

Soon, the sun will disrupt the opaque blanket of the night, and suddenly, without any real warning, it will be a new day. It happens all the time, Isak thinks. The streets will start to fill with people again. The minutes tick endlessly by, the hours will return, and perhaps they will haunt Isak. Right now he accepts the present: feels the scabs on his hands from the broken glass, the cold air on his face. The way the red brick of the Sagene had sat impassively against the gray sky. Thinks of blood on porcelain, of lavender hitting oak with a _thwack_. Thinks: you know what you have to do. Here is the sign you were too scared to seek for yourself. Here is fate knocking on your door again.

He leaves the apartment quietly so as not to disturb Jonas. And then, in the bright dawn of morning, Isak chooses to be brave.

-

 

[TORSDAG 06:50](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4CeMBz0Agk)

He should have thought it through, but it’s too late for that now. Isak stands under the apartment building he know Even lives in. He can’t remember which number is it, and doesn’t have Even’s phone number. Isak circles the block a couple of times, buzzing with nervous energy, ill dressed for the weather. He is moments away from breaking down into a panic when Mari comes out of the front door with an Asian girl in tow.

“Hey,” he sounds out of breath, and maybe a little unsettled. He probably looks terrible. “I’m sorry to just ambush you - is Even home? Can I speak to him?”

“Oh, hi,” Mari shares a look with the other girl, and for the second time, Isak wants to know what the look means. “Isak, right? No, Even is at work already. Do you - are you okay? Do you want me to call him for you?”

“Yes, please, if you could,” Isak bites on the inside of his cheek. He can’t feel his lips, it’s so cold, and he’s only got a wool jumper on. “I’m sorry, I know I must seem - really ridiculous, but I’m leaving later, and I really, really need to speak with him.”

Mari nods, already shifting her Iphone to her ear and stepping away from them. Isak looks to the other girl, wearing a black beany and stylish glasses, her hair braided into two plaits. She reminds him of some of the girls who work at one of his favorite cafes back in Berlin. Dressed in black, stoic, too cool to give someone like Isak the time of day. There is a tiny gold ring in her nose.

“Hei,” she says, and her voice has a funny accent which hints of her Finnish origins. “I’m Hemi, we haven’t met. And you’re Isak?”

“Hemi, hi,” Isak attempts to hold himself still, hugging his sides. “You’re Even’s other roommate.”

“Yep,” she nods, and then her eyes narrow with the tilt of her head. “You’re Even’s ex-boyfriend.”

Isak frowns.

Mari saves him for some of sort of awkward exchange. Hemi did not look like the type to offer small talk first, and neither was he. “Even says you can wait for him up in his room, if you don’t mind. He’ll be off in a couple of hours.”

“That’s - that would be - ”

“Probably for the best,” Mari fixes him with another firm look, like she’s sizing up whether or not she could take him if it was deemed necessary. “You look freezing. It’s number 82. Just take my key, and leave it under our mat when you get in.”

“Thank you - thanks,” Isak says, and he doesn’t even feel bad when he escapes into the lobby and up the elevator without a second glance backwards.

Upstairs, the apartment is still. The morning floods into the living room with a gray brightness that feels unsettling, given how just a little time ago, it was inky black and unforgiving. Isak thinks about sitting on the sofa, but doesn’t. He surveys the morning dishes in the sink, a yoga mat still rolled out in front of the balcony doors, a few textbooks on sound editing lying on the trunk in front of the sofa.

He’s shivering, and he can’t stop. His mouth is numb, and when he looks in the mirror in the hallway, he is shocked to find who is in front of him. His pale face stares back: tiny blue veins, run like miniature rivers, visible under his translucent skin. Crescent shaped bruises tinged puce sit under his eyes. His hair is greasy and untamed, flattened from his forehead, all the curls lost. He braves smelling his armpits and cringes. Realises he hasn’t cared about his body until this very second.

The bathroom was the only part of the house Even hadn’t shown him, besides the girls’ rooms. The first door he tries in the hallway is a closet, but the second try is lucky, and it reveals a light blue room with a white tiled floor and another nice window. On the counter surrounding the sink sit a plethora of products that Isak wouldn’t be able to decipher were Even’s or Mari’s or Hemi’s, or if they all share like one big happy Kollektivet, the way Noora and Eskild sometimes would. Isak strips out of his clothes and feels a shiver ripple through him again. He can’t both to stand in the shower, so he settles for a bath, watching as the water rises and the whole room fills with steam. He doesn’t look in the mirror again.

In the hot water he can feel the blood return to his face, fingers and toes. He submerges, watching his dick bob uselessly between his legs, his redden knees knock together. He is still kind of bony, no gratuitous cords of thigh muscle or impressive calf flexing. He pinches at the skin on the inside of his thigh, thinks of the bruises Even’s mouth would create. The scabs on his palms sting but only a for moment. There is no blood this time. The water does not run cold.

There was a time during junior high when he hated bathing all together. It nearly became a real problem, circumvented only when Jonas’ mother had sat him down and had a thoroughly humiliating conversation with him about puberty and hygiene. As a child, his mother used to make him sit in the tub for what felt like forever, convinced he would never be clean enough. He’d sit in tepid water, humiliated and naked, while she would scrub his skin down and talk to herself under her breath. Sometimes he understood, other times her voice became reduced to a cacophony of noise. Sometimes it would be two hours before she’d forget about him in there, and he could crawl out, redress, and lock himself in his room.

Once, when he was fourteen, she had become enraged at Isak for returning home late, and drunk, and demanded he strip and get into the bath. He had refused, defiant, shocked by the sound of his voice. She had pulled him by the neck of his scarf into the bathroom where the water was running, overflowing onto the floor and soaking his canvas shoes.

Her eyes betrayed whether or not she understood who he was: her son, her precious Gabriel. It didn’t matter: now he was her enemy, and she needed to cleanse him. She tried to push him backward into the tub, pulling at his clothes, screaming at him for being a _unworthy dirty sinner._ Again he had refused, until she had told him that he was disgusting, her hand grabbing at his crotch and pulling at his genitals. The shock hit him straight in the gut, and in retaliation, he pushed her hard enough that she fell backwards, hitting her shoulder into the counter. Everything had stopped. For a moment, they both stared at each other in fear.

Then she started to cry. Isak remembers feeling the burst of anger leave his body nearly as abruptly as it arrived, and the shame flooded in its haste, until he was choking on it. The water had still been running, consistent and loud, like something breaking in the background. He remembers realising that he was stronger than his mother, for the first time, that he did not have to do as she said.

Now, the memory makes him weep. He curls up into himself, tucks his knees into his chest and presses his forehead against them until it hurts, and sobs wracked his body. He is inconsolable, angry, humiliated all over again. Thinks of his mother, in her brief moment of clarity, as she had looked up at him in fear. Thinks of how in response, he had thought: _good. You should be scared of me._ Didn’t know where that thought came from, but knew it was his, all the same.

Eventually, he stops crying. The water remains warm. His toes are pruny and he feels clean now, smelling like the gardenia shampoo and the blue bar of soap on the counter. Thinks: how easy it would be, to simply wash everything thing that has ever happened to us, and step back in our lives, unscathed. Thinks: the first time Even and he had taken a bath together, it had felt holy, the way their wet skin had slipped and slid against each other, the way water clung to Even’s eyelashes. Thinks: with Even, there was no room for shame.

Isak can feel the exhaustion set in as he tidies up after himself. He stalks with the towel around his shoulders, his clothes underneath his arm. He closes the door to Even’s room behind him with a soft click, wonders what time it is. He hangs the towel on the closet door where it hangs open. Finds the sweatpants Even had handed him days ago, when they were both too shy to change in front of each other, silly and bashful. Isak slips them on, feeling safe in his clothes.

He crawls into Even’s bed and pulls the duvet up to his chin. He will wait for Even until he arrives home.

 

-

 

[TORSDAG 14:21](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=px42qZcCeRU)

A prickling of his senses; he stirs, fumbles his way into awakeness. He doesn’t remember falling asleep. When Isak opens his eyes, he finds Even standing in the doorway of his room, his gaze fixed on him. His face is still, impassive.

Isak feels both meek and rather unperturbed in his muddled state. He leans up on his forearms. “Hi. Mari let me in.”

“You are such a picture there,” Even makes no move inside the room, just leans on the doorframe and smiles. “Almost angelic. I could paint you like this.”

“Sorry to fall asleep in your bed,” Isak mumbles, but his face floods with a warm heat, and he knows he’s blushing, and knows, probably that it will delight Even. “I haven’t really been thinking very clearly.”

“Oh, I know that feeling,” Even shrugs, and Isak thinks, _yeah, you’d know more than anyone._ It’s felt without derision. Isak settles, now that he understands Even isn’t disturbed at the blatant intrusion. “You okay?”

“No,” Isak shakes his head. “I am leaving tomorrow. And I wanted to talk to you. But I was exhausted, and you were at work. I ran out into the morning with a jacket out, because I thought I was having a moment. I was trying to be brave.”

It’s then that Even steps inside. He’s wearing a beanie with his hair tucked behind his ears, but it curls a little around his temple. His sweater is layered on top of a green hoodie with holes in the sleeves for his thumbs. He’s wearing dark maroon trousers, tailored, but faded in the knees. He looks so attractive that Isak’s mouth floods with saliva.  

“Why are you trying to be brave?” Even asks. He sits on the end of the bed, and Isak sits up then, folding his knee underneath him and shaking off the last remnants of sleep.

Isak takes a deep breath. Doesn’t hold back what he wants to say. Instead just lets it pour from his mouth, like gold from an urn. “I’m scared. Scared to leave, and not see you again.”

“Mm,” Even nods. His fingers slide over the duvet and presses gently against the top of Isak’s foot, and through the fabric he can feel just the inkling of warmth. His miniature encouragements to keep speaking. Even, always coaxing Isak out of his hiding places, into the light, where they both can be understood.

“I want to know where I stand with you,” Isak says. “But first I will tell you where you stand with me.”

He breathes in, then exhales. Even is an image of patience, illuminated in the fading mid afternoon light, half his face obscured in shadow. His eyes do not leave Isak’s.

“There are all these universes where we never stopped being together,” Isak begins. “And there are these universes where, I was better at loving you. In my head, they play on loop. All the ways I could have understood you. All the ways I should have understood myself.”

Takes another breath. “I realised something. Seeing you in this universe could be a sign.”

Even makes a soft sound. But Isak shakes his head, inhales with a quick shudder, wants to continue. Wants to say what he really has to say. “I haven’t read them, because I can’t. Yet. But I know you were writing my mother.”

“Isak,” Even’s voice is soft and wet, and when Isak looks up, his eyes are full of tears, none of which fall onto his face. He watches Even’s adam's apple bob, once, and then twice, before he says anything.

“It’s okay. It’s okay,” Isak says, and his voice shakes, curling in around the edges. He looks away, through the big window to the outside world. But it is unsatisfactory compared to looking at Even. “I know that it was terrible when we broke up. And I won’t forget how hard it was to come back from that. But  I just - when someone really loves you like that - I -  I can’t be the person who turns their back on a love like this. I want to tell you that I’m offering to try again. If you wanted. We could be better than we were.”

Even’s voice is but a held whisper when he says, hurried, “How can you be so sure?”

The words come to Isak without him even having to think them first. They are delivered from his heart. “Because it’s you. Because it’s me. And for me, it’s always been you.”

He takes a breath. Another. Then another. And then -

“Do you love me?” Isak asks. “If there’s any chance, I need to know. Do you? Do you, still?”

A moment shared between them. His blood rushing in his ears. A beat, and then another, and then another, into eternity, until - “Yes."

A flood breaks; what did they know about salvation, Isak thinks randomly, if they’d never stared into the face of God, and asked him, do you? Do you, still?

He nods, unsure if he can withstand saying anything else. Nothing matters now except this - yes. Yes. Yes. Then: the breath he was holding, he lets it go. His lungs relax.

“Okay,” he says.

“I don’t know - what else to say,” only for the second time since Isak’s returned does Even seem to falter: grasping to understand, unsure where his footing will land. Isak knows this feeling. He’s felt suspended in mid-air for a while, continuously falling.

Isak places his hand over Even’s where it sits between them on the duvet. Even stares at their joined hands together for a moment, and Isak thinks he’s categorising the image to save for later. Wonders what it looks like to him, if it looks the same as it does to Isak.

Even licks his lips. Looks up at Isak, his sharp blue eyes so soft and full of grace, molten in their affection as he leans forward, his hands reaching for Isak’s face. He holds his cheeks, and for a moment they breathe in together, sharing the same air. Isak does not dare move.

A rustle of a blanket, and then, Even’s mouth on his. It’s better than any memory he’s coveted before, the way his lips trap Isak’s upper lip, drawing him in, his tongue swiping against his bottom, seeking permission. And Isak unfolds there for him, coming undone in his hands, his face held still in Even’s grip. Even’s mouth tastes like salt, and snow, and like coming home, like coming home.

He closes his eyes, lets his beating heart thrash in his chest as he rocks forward, scrambling to be closer, as close as he can possibly get without opening Even’s body and crawling inside to live there for good. Even’s mouth on his, as Isak looms above him, his knees on either side of his hips. For good measure, he presses his hand to the back of Even’s head, pressing him as close as he can, until they feel like they could be fused together into one person again.

They kiss in wild abandon and then Even snaps in control, pressing down against Isak until he folds back onto the bed, cradling his jaw with his hands so tightly it feels like a bruise blooming. Isak is harder than he’s ever been in so little time, arching up into Even’s fully clothed body, the room spinning. His thoughts fade into the background in lieu of desire consuming him. Even makes a noise and it catches in his throat like he’s being strangled, and Isak understands, understands fully what that means. He pulls at Isak’s hair, forcing his neck backward and his teeth are on him, and Isak moans with abandon, not caring about the sounds coming from his mouth.

Even’s knee presses between his legs and Isak feels his hips cant and his legs fall open, and he hasn’t felt need like this in years. It feels like a dam has broken in his body, finally, and something akin to relief starts to course through as Isak thrums with want. It’s a long lost feeling: he just blindly wants. He wants their skin to touch, their bodies to align. He wants to open up for Even, and let him look inside.

His eyes snap open, and he looks up at Even, thinks: my god, this man is beautiful. Who is this? How has this happened? It is a daze, now, as Even kisses him, his face, his mouth, teething at his lips and pulling him closer, closer into him. Isak watches as Even breaks their kiss, looming over him, pulling his jumper off, rolling Isak out of his sweatpants, his dick hitting his stomach and leaving a small wet mark.

“Fuck,” Even breathes, running his hands down his body, and watches with unfiltered awe as Isaks’ body rolls up into his touch. “You are so fucking beautiful, Isak.”

He punctuates this with a growl in his voice, like his teeth have clenched. His mouth is red where Isak has bitten it. He thinks distantly: I did that. He pulls him down onto the bed, pressing his hands into his muscle, kneading it, folding Isak’s thighs around his shoulders and then his mouth is on his cock like a vacuum, sucking him down with one incredible maneuver that evokes a literal, genuine gasp.  

Isak threads one hand through Even’s hair, mindful not to tug, and shifts up, canting his hips until Even presses him down and holds him still, working his cock with his mouth with such efficiency that Isak has to pull at his hair to stop him only minutes later. He doesn’t want to come. Not yet. Not until he sees Even too, and together, they come undone.

Even comes up for air, his mouth slick and puckered red, and Isak looks up at him, encased in pale light, thinks: my god, my god, my god -

“Will you let me fuck you?” Even breathes, and nevermind it’s been a while, nevermind Isak is baring his soul to the one lover who never left his heart, nevermind they’ve become reckless and enraptured with each other mere minutes after - after Do you? Do you still?

Nevermind any of it. “Yes,” Isak says, “Yes, please."

It is the truth.

Of all the lies he’s told himself, of all the lacklustre lovers in his bed since, of all the times he’s faked his interest just so he can come, the orgasm capturing him like a little death: all of it a mere flame to the brazen fire he knows to be with Even. With Even it feels like every last defence he’s ever had whittles away to dust and sand; like they never mattered at all. Like all of his bones are proud to be displayed, and every embarrassment washes away in the face of an intimacy so great Isak fears he’ll never know how to understand it fully. He certainly doesn’t know how to put it into words.

Like light, and the freckles in Even’s eyes, and the spooling tension in Isak’s stomach. Blessed be the mystery of this holy communion; of this joining of hands, encapsulated in grace, his body laid out like a prayer for only Even to understand.

All of the pieces of sex are there: the tug of the duvet, the taste of Even’s skin on his tongue, the lube opening, closing, opening again. The feeling of fingers inside of him, his eyes on Even’s freckled chest, the broadened shoulders, the shadows incased as their bodies join together. Isak consumes all of it like images passing through the inside of eyelids, but he is not passive; he is enraptured, drinking in every single movement like he’s been left in a drought, and finally he’s stumbled into oasis. It’s overwhelming. It’s so overwhelming Isak thinks he might cry.

Even enters him and the stretch burns in a way that satisfies him. Watches with awe at their their tangled bodies now: Isak’s heels digging into the mattress as he adjusts and pushes back against Even’s cock, urging him in deeper, make him feel full. He forgot what it was like to be captivated.

“Fuck,” Even grunts, his hair falling over his eyes, and Isak pushes his hand through it, pulling it a little, directing his face into his neck until Even bites at the skin there, maiming him. “Fuck,” he says again, and then he pulls his hips back and slams into Isak for the first time, sending a shock through them both.

He could take Isak like this, but instead he loops Isak’s legs around his waist and sits them up so that Isak is rocking against him, the angle distinct as Even’s every thrust brushes against his prostate. He understands now, and he shifts, sitting on Even’s cock fully, feeling his arms wrap around his shoulders and holding him close. Even’s arms come to loop behind him, and the now they become enshrined together: joined in every way, not a place in his body untouched. His lips parting, saliva trailing into Even’s mouth, as they press their foreheads together. Isak starts to ride in a fervour of Even, Even, Even.

With his cock trapped between them, Isak feels the tension pulling like a rubber band, threatening to snap at any moment. Even coaches him into a pace that plans to destroy Isak all together, every brush against his prostate a miniature eruption, their skin slicked with sweat. Even’s hand winds up through Isak’s hair and pulls his head back to expose his neck, and this is when he says:

“You were mine first,” he grounds out, and when Isak gasps in surprise, he finds that Even’s pupils are so dilated they’re nearly black, his brows drawn up in a fervour that sets Isak a flame. He says it again, punctuates each word with a well timed thrust that makes Isak’s eyes roll back in his head. 

Even, always knowing, uses his words to unlock what is always locked inside Isak, and he unspools, finally, the tension breaking. Isak gives into it; feels it overcome him as his vision hazes into a grayish tinge and he can’t feel anything else but his cock pulsate between them. When the little stars dissipate and his vision returns, he finds his mouth is fixed on Even’s shoulder where he’s bitten nearly through the skin, dribbling all over him.

Possessive, greedy, extreme: their bodies eclipsed in fire, joined like a match hitting flint. But like water, they move fluidly, an unending tide pulling once against to shore. He is enraptured. These bodies, possessed by light.

Their mouths press together without finesse or precision, and it only takes Even a few sloppy thrusts until Isak can no longer stand it, and he arches his back for Even, riding him in a flurry of limbs and knees and biting, wet kisses. He holds Even’s face in his hands and doesn’t let go as Even starts to come, and again, it feels like a blindness threatening to overcome them both, watching Even come undone, coming inside of Isak and filling him up, his arms sliding down his back and keeping him seated, still.

Isak feels ruined. And in the same stroke; relief.

-

[TORSDAG 21:21](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psIPQMgThFg)

Later, clean and wearing Even’s sweatpants again, they sit together knee to knee on Even’s bed and eat salmon and cream on rye, watching the city twinkle outside. The music is on low, and Isak is looking at Even, drinking him in. A terrible pain sits in his chest: I don’t want to leave, he thinks.

He stretches out, his body sore, his muscles punctuated like a bruise. Even sits quietly next to him, the line of his neck filtered with love bites. Isak thinks: I did that. Still marvels at their post-coital state like he was when he is 17. Feels wrung out and delirious, but alive again. A question sits on his tongue, one he was not brave enough to ask until now.

“Why did you write her?”

Even turns to look at him then. Fixes him with a gaze through his lashes like he’s been trying to figure Isak out since he ever laid eyes on him. Isak can sense he’s rolling words around his mouth, selecting the ones he wants to use. Even does that a lot, now.

“It's complicated,” Even settles on finally. “I’m not sure you’ll want to know, after I tell you.”

“But I can’t know that until after, anyway. You can’t leave me wondering.”

A heavy sigh. “I know.” Then. “I know your mother and I are not comparable, in all the ways that count. But I fell into a dark place, after you left. And I drew some parallels that once they entered my brain, I could not let go.”

Isak feels his gut clench. He does not say anything.

Even heaves another sigh, his shoulders tight and drawn up. Then he lets them go, and the tension spools out from him. All his lines relax. He looks again at Isak warily. “I didn’t want her to feel like she had been left, too. It was foolish, of course, but I couldn’t help myself. At the brink of an episode, I wrote her pretending I was you, to see if she would write back. A couple of weeks later I got a very short reply. I can give it to you. I called the nurses’ desk, to see if any other mail was coming in.”

He knows the answer without Even having to say it. Isak can feel the pressure build in his chest in agonising detail, as it crawls up his throat. He tries to exhale, and feels it catch in lungs, refuses to leave.

Even says, “I thought if she believed you had gone travelling, it would explain why she didn’t hear from you very often. So I sent her a postcard. Nothing grandiose. By this time I was a lot better, and I didn’t want to be you anymore, I didn’t want to even _think_ of you. But I couldn’t stop. And I’m still not really sure what I wanted from it, but I knew that if she believed that you hadn’t left her, then in some way, you hadn’t left me, either.”

“Fuck,” Isak does not stop as the tears fall from his face. His vision blurs, as he shudders, an aching in his mouth as he crumbles. “I’m so sorry. I’m sorry I did this to you.”

“Isak,” Even’s voice is soothing from above him. “Hey, listen. It’s okay. I’m sorry, too. For everything.”

“Why?” Isak wrenches out of Even’s loose grip, his coaxing, soft touches. “Why? You weren’t the one who gave up. I gave up. I left. I left you, and I left her, and I sat in this pity for myself because I never had the courage to write her. I never wrote my mother. And now, to find that she believed me to be a better person than I really was, a better son….I just. I feel like such a fucking failure. I’ve failed you, and her, and everyone.”

He hiccups, wiping at his face with the heel of his palm. “And for what?” he bites out sardonically. “I didn’t even gain anything from it. I just ran away.”

“You went to university,” Even reminds him gently. “You didn’t just run away. There was a plan in place, something you wanted, and we had talked about. Remember, I was the one who encouraged you, who got your hopes up, who helped you set all this shit into action. And then I failed you, too. I didn’t trust myself to leave. I was frozen with fear.”

“ _You,_ ” Isak punctuates, but fails to find any other words. He can’t make sense of anything, his head throbbing as an image of his mother arrives in his mind’s eye, feeble and forgotten, alone forever.

“Isak,” Even commands then, holding his face, his thumbs pressing into the bags under Isak’s eyes. “Isak. Listen to me. You had every right to leave your mother. She never made your life easy, even though she loved you. And the same goes for me, you understand me? You had every right to leave. Okay?”

A beat. Even sighs, exasperated. “Say okay.”

“Okay,” Isak answers. He feels another tear slip and catch on Even’s thumb. This time he does not bring it to his mouth.

They sit together and stare into each other’s eyes. Then Even releases him. Sags under the weight of everything he’s just said, and Isak thinks, what will this cost him? Feels the fear in him stir at the idea of hurting Even again.

The song changes, and with it, the mood lapses into something quiet, not unlike the calm after a storm. They lie amidst all the havoc, all the destruction they’re wrought on each other, on themselves. Wars they’ve fought together and alone, inside their heads.

Then Isak says. “Thank you.”

Even nods, and does not ask him to specify. He taps out a line of notes on Isak’s thigh, then looks at him again. The soft yellow of his fairy lights twinkle, creating shadows on his face.

“Now I have a question,” he says, licking his lips. “What happened to your hands?”

Isak looks down at them. “Right,” he says. “I’m not sure, actually. I had a really terrible morning the day of the funeral. There was a broken glass, and I must have cut them. Jonas found me in the tub, and I can’t remember exactly what happened but he said the water was ice cold and I couldn’t stop shivering. I was having a panic attack, I think.”

Even’s arms come up to pull Isak into his lap then, his cheek caressing the side of Isak’s face, an errant kiss landing on his forehead. He closes his eyes, breathes in Even’s smell, and clutches, briefly, at the sleeve of his jumper. Isak lets himself be held.

They settled into a quiet intimacy then, one which Isak will covet, and hopes he never has to let go.

-

 

FREDAG 02:01

Later, into the morning, settled under the blankets, Even murmurs, “What are we going to do?”

Isak sighs, heavy with the implication of what lies ahead. Wonders how he’ll ever dig himself out of this grief. “I am going to go back to Berlin."

Even nods, closes his eyes a moment longer than normal, like he’s trying to memorise the moment. Isak understands, because he’s doing the same thing. Isak gathers up his remaining energy, and rolls closer, until his lips are so close to Even’s their breath mingle into one. He kisses him then, softly, reminds himself of how they used to kiss, slow and languid on a Sunday morning, like they had all the time in the world.

When they break away, Isak leans his cheek into his hand and stares up at Even, watches as his eyelashes flutter every time he blinks.

“Remember when you came back after your night out? On the balcony, you said to me, ‘I had a whole scenario planned out.’” Even says. His voice is slow like syrup. He clarifies, “You said you were going to return to Oslo, and you had a whole scenario.”

For a moment Isak does not know what moment he is referring to: these days have been so muddled, his sleeping fucked, his head so consumed with the weight of it all, the grief like a bullet ricocheting inside of him. No exit wound. But then, like three drops of blood falling into the snow, it clicks: yes, yes. That moment. That moment on the balcony, when a new door opened, one Isak never dared to even hope for.

He nods. “I wanted to come back and show you that I had grown into this brave, happy person, who could show you that I was okay with myself. But I guess I know now that you don’t expect me to be ‘brave’ in the same way as before. But I want to be.”

Even nods. “You are brave. You are, Isak.”

“But I wanted to be _proud_ ,” Isak clarifies. “I wanted to prove to you...that I am a capable of a love without shame. And also, that I wasn’t ashamed of myself. I worried that I only ever felt like I could be out because you felt like you could be. What scares me the most is that I didn’t know who I was, after we broke up. And I think I need to figure out who I am. Because otherwise it just holds us back. From being who we could be.”

Isak feels Even’s hand come up to caress him, a tenderness between them derived from years of learned intimacy, of muscle memory and touch. His fingers card through his hair, along his forehead. Isak loves him. Isak loves him so much he is inarticulate and fumbling with it, but for the first time in a long time, he looks at Even and feels the first stirring of hope.

No more guilt, he tells himself. Remember, to find hope first.

“I think,” Even says finally. “I think you can still do this. If you go to Berlin. You can figure it out this time. And if you want, you can show me all the ways you are proud. But what is more important to me, is that you believe it yourself. That you are worth being proud of.”

Isak’s flutter closed. “Thank you.”

“This time, you can rest assured, it won’t feel like this when you come back. We already agreed, love was never the problem for us. And maybe it won’t be easy, or perfect, or whatever. We never wanted that anyway. But I told you, on that first night,” Even fixes him with a look, his mouth breaking in a soft smile, “That I’m willing to figure it out with you.”

Isak smiles. “I’m going to whisk you off your feet. When everything is settled and I can think clearly again. You’re not going to know what hits you, when I come back.”

Even presses his fingers to his own lips, then pushes them against Isak’s. A travelling kiss. A corner of his mouth turns up. “I know. Once you’ve had time to grieve, and finish your classes, and figure out whatever you need to figure out. I’ll be here.”

Here is the deep seated fear that he will not even say to himself, except now he has to. Be brave, he thinks. Here is a beautiful boy in front of you, and he already loves you, and you can be brave for him.

His voice is small, but nevertheless he asks: “Will you wait for me?”

But Even only laughs under his breath. “Baby,” he murmurs, and it all Isak can do not to melt under that word, his limbs pliant as Even leans into kiss him again. They press their tongues against one another, tasting each other’s spit, pressing their noses together. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

Isak raises his brow, faux-serious. “I’m not going to change my mind now.”

Even returns the look, teasing, glorious, breathtaking in his adoration for Isak. “Me either.”

“I’m going to hold you to it.”

Even laughs again. It’s a sound Isak thinks he could worship forever. “I hope you do.”

-

 

[FREDAG 08:45](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcgY-titmYs)

Jonas drops him off at the airport. Isak has barely slept, but this time he isn’t tired. Only alive, and capable, and full of love.

“You’ll be seeing me soon,” he promises, and for once his voice doesn’t sound like a hollowed out version of who he used to be. Jonas nods seriously, asks no questions. When he parks in the Oslo airport garage outside the terminal, he leaves his door ajar to come around the end of the car. Stands in front of Isak and embraces him. Isak returns it, trying to place everything he hasn’t been able to say in the hug.

They part. Jonas says, his voice a little thick, “Until next time.”

Isak nods. “Thank you. For being my best friend.”

Jonas waves him off, like it was nothing. And Isak knows it wasn’t for nothing. That he, like anyone else, takes their toll. He thinks of his mother. But sometimes, for the sake of love, we do not mind. He thinks of Even. We may even welcome it.

With his rucksack hanging off one shoulder, and his ticket in hand, Isak goes to board his plane.

-

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Okay, and lastly:
> 
> I'm on tumblr at http://odetopsych-e.tumblr.com. 
> 
> Come hang out with me, chat about SKAM, and talk to me about the layers in this story or any other story (I can go on forever). Also talk to me if this piece gives you issues, I'm open to constructive criticism too. 
> 
> I am writing a sequel, hopefully. If you liked this work, and want to see part two (including a less ambiguous happy ending), please leave me a comment, because I need instant gratification, and also, you guys literally make my heart swell just thinking about someone reading something I wrote because I love Isak Valtersen and I have no regrets about it. 
> 
> Alt er Love.


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